


Being Alive

by mtothedestiel



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Babies, Domestic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, Fatherhood, Fluff, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Getting Back Together, Getting Together, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Kid Fic, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Non-Canonical Character Death, POV Eliot Waugh, POV Quentin Coldwater, Quentin Coldwater Lives, Tenderness, Therapy, life as we know it - Freeform, so does Eliot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:00:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26584795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mtothedestiel/pseuds/mtothedestiel
Summary: Can Quentin make a home out of a mausoleum? How many parents (living and dead) can one baby really have? Will Eliot ever be whole again?OrSometimes a family can be a depressed children's book author, a man with half his soul, and a really well-dressed infant.A Life As We Know it AU.
Relationships: Margo Hanson & Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater & Margo Hanson & Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 54
Kudos: 124
Collections: Magicians Happy Ever After





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This MHEA entry is loosely based on the rom-com Life As We Know It. Reading the summary on wikipedia will clue you into the major starting conflict that guides my version, but the rest is irrelevant and won’t spoil anything. I honestly don’t love the original movie, but I loved the concept and I wanted to explore it seriously. I think grief is something we’re all feeling right now on multiple levels. Season five thrust a grieving Eliot into our arms, and I wanted him to finally have room to breathe, albeit in a totally different set of circumstances. I’ve tried to tag appropriately, and if there are any other tags I can add please leave them in the comments. 
> 
> This might not be a fic for everybody, but it was born out of love for characters who never got to grieve, and never got to live. Enjoy Being Alive, and I hope to see you all at the HEA.
> 
> P.S. thanks always to my beta, queliotpasta, for tightening things up. Someday we will finally conquer the dialogue tag on the first pass.

The worst day of Eliot Waugh’s life starts out on a high note. Several high notes. A whole Whitney Houston vocal run, if you will. 

“Excellent work, Fen.” 

Fen beams as Eliot hands her a flute of champagne. “Thanks boss.” She clinks their glasses together as guests mingle at the upscale bar Eliot rented out for the night. It’s an intimate gathering, but there’s enough plus ones and friends of friends to make the space feel warm and full. “It’s been good practice. Maybe I can take point on a few more events this year and you could, you know, get some sleep once in a while.” 

Eliot laughs at his second in command. “Let’s work you up to higher stakes than a passed hors d'oeuvres reception and see how things go, hm?” 

“I can’t imagine any of our clients would have higher standards than yours,” Fen replies with a knowing eyebrow raised. 

Eliot sips his own drink, a custom cocktail he’d designed just for the evening. “Things can never be too perfect when it’s for Bambi.” What’s the point of being the city’s most elegant event planner if he can’t use his powers to celebrate Margo’s accomplishments? 

“Mimi’s first cocktail party,” Fen sighs happily. “They grow up so fast.” 

“I think we’ll have time for a few more celebrations yet before she declares us all uncool.” Eliot scans the small crowd to do a quick RSVP headcount. He’s only supposed to be here as a client tonight, but old habits and all that. Between Margo’s law firm, Josh’s sisters, and their motley crew of accumulated mutual acquaintances the bar is fashionably filled with young professionals. From here he can see Julia, clearly straight from court in her chic gray suit, laughing with Penny and Kady who are dressed in the kind of linen and leather designer that only married couples without kids can enjoy. 

There’s only one person missing from the inner circle. 

“Have you seen Quentin yet?” 

As if Eliot ever fails to notice when Quentin enters a room. As if Quentin would arrive and _not_ seek out Eliot first.

Fen frowns, glancing around the room herself. “Uh, not yet. But he RSVP’d, obviously.” 

Eliot sighs, though it’s fond. “He’s late. I’m sure he got caught up in a chapter and missed his train.” 

He can imagine how it must have played out. Quentin, wrapped in his usual blanket cocoon at his desk, the word document slowly filling with tales of child-friendly adventure and noble quests after days of a dry spell. Then a glance at the clock and an adorable yelp as he realizes the time and scrambles for the closet and the outfit Eliot recommended to him last week. 

Eliot pulls out his phone and sends a quick message, just in case.

_E: on your way, q? Bambi is expecting both appointed godfathers at this event._

The reply bubbles pop up at once, which is a good sign. When Quentin’s up against a real publisher’s deadline he tends to turn off his phone. 

Q:...

_Q: sorry! had an appointment._

_Q: I’m just down the block._

_Q: Be there soon._

Eliot sends back an emoji of clinking champagne glasses, satisfied with Quentin’s flurry of responses. Among his other virtues, Quentin is a champion multitexter. It’s the same as the way he talks, with starts and stops and lots of emphasis with his hands. Over the years Eliot has learned to recognize the source of a message from the speed of the vibration in his pocket. Quentin is a flock of short replies and Margo long steady paragraphs like one of her law writs. The group chat is a nightmare. 

Anyway, because Eliot and Fen are great at their jobs, the recently expanded Hanson-Hoberman family arrives exactly at the same time Stevie Wonder’s _Isn’t She Lovely_ starts crooning over the speakers. There was some collaboration on that timing, because Margo might have come close to settling into domesticity but she’s still a bad bitch who knows how to make an entrance. Tonight, however, it isn’t Margo—and certainly not dear Joshua—who are to enjoy the first fruits of Eliot’s love and affection. He barely waits for the applause and good wishes to settle before he approaches his target.

“Excuse me, where’s the lady of the hour? Where’s my Mimi?”

“Well, fuck me, I guess,” Margo says with a raised eyebrow as Eliot swans past her in order to liberate the guest of honor from the chic baby-carrier Josh is hefting onto a cocktail table. Mimi—Margo Eleanor Hanson-Hoberman, all of three months old and absolute perfection—coos at the sight of him, because of _course_ she does. Eliot is her favorite person. Except for maybe the woman who gave her life. 

“My love, my queen, my Bambi, you will always be first in my heart,” Eliot swears as he pulls Margo in for a kiss with Mimi tucked safe in the crook of his elbow. “But on this, the evening of her debut, there’s only one girl I can have on my arm.” 

“Oh hey, Eliot, great party,” Josh says once he’s stashed the empty baby carrier under a table. “Excellent vibes. Are you, uh, dressed to match our baby?” 

“I’m dressed to _complement_ our baby,” Eliot clarifies. He might have had Mimi’s paisley silk overalls custom made. It was hardly an effort. One makes all kinds of connections in the event planning business. As it is, Mimi is a vision. Casual elegance with her romper and contrasting scrunchie headband complete with floral detail and her perfect head of fuzzy baby hair. 

“It’s a look,” Margo agrees, resplendent in her own ivory sheath dress. Josh, who has more interest in clothes than any other heterosexual man Eliot knows, is keeping up with his wife in a well tailored charcoal trouser and a two tone oxford shoe. It’s a bold choice that Eliot can respect. He’s less enamored with the tiny pineapple print on his button down, but who’s Eliot to judge? It’s a good supporting ensemble for the impossibly beautiful women in Josh’s life. 

“Alright, you two,” Eliot instructs. “I’m escorting her ladyship, and it’s up to you to sample the menu of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages and talk to some adults.” 

“You don’t have to tell us twice.” Josh gives Mimi an incredibly sweet smooch before Margo drags him off to the bar to catch up on missed law firm antics with Julia. 

“Alone at last, sweet girl.” Eliot taps Mimi on her cute little Josh-esque nose. “Let me introduce you to your adoring public.” 

There are many people in this world who would probably hear the words _Eliot Waugh_ and _baby_ connected in the same sentence and laugh their asses off. Eliot had always imagined himself enjoying the baby phase from a distance and then swooping in during the terrible teens to buy alcohol, share weed, and just generally encourage those first tentative steps into queer debauchery. Babies just seemed too easy to fuck up. But twelve hours in a delivery room put Eliot right on his ass, because the moment he held Mimi in his arms, he knew she wasn’t going to be just any baby. She was _Margo’s_ baby. Eliot’s very own perfect secular goddaughter. 

And yeah, maybe the natural weight of Mimi in his arms makes Eliot think about shit he hadn’t let himself consider before now. That’s nobody’s business. 

Before he has to waste too much time talking to any actual plebs, preferable company arrives. 

“Sorry I’m late, I—oh, hi, Mimi!” 

Quentin Coldwater, in the flesh. He’s a little out of breath, like he ran the last couple of blocks, his brown eyes sparkling as he offers Mimi a finger to grasp as she coos at probably her fourth favorite person in the world. It puts Quentin close into Eliot’s space, so he gets the full sensory experience when Mimi gets him in her little fisted grip and Quentin looks up at him like _can you believe?_ He gets the soft grin, the starry eyes, the faint scent of Axe body spray (he has taste but he was a horny teenager once _,_ sue him) and the sight of Quentin wearing clothes that Eliot _chose for him_.

As always, the room gets one degree warmer with Quentin in it.

“Hi, El.” 

Utter decadence. 

“Hi, Q.” Eliot blinks as he takes in the full picture of Quentin’s appearance. “What’s this?” 

With Mimi secure in one elbow Eliot draws his fingers through the newly shorn length of Quentin’s hair. What used to be a (beautiful) curtain nearly down to Quentin’s shoulders is now a fringe that just tucks behind his ears. 

“It’s, um—” Quentin blushes a little, tilting his head ever so slightly into Eliot’s touch—which _hnng_. “They wanted to take a few pictures today. For the hardcover sleeve. So I thought maybe, it was time for a change?” 

“Grown up, Q.” Margo appears at Quentin’s elbow with a highball glass in hand, obviously approving of his new look. “I see you’ve finally figured out being fashionably late, Coldwater.” 

“I learned it from the best. Hi, Margo.”

Quentin grins sheepishly as Margo pecks a kiss on his cheek. Eliot sighs, but he can only mourn so openly for certain hair pulling fantasies he’d been harboring for the last five years or so without giving up the game.

“I’ll get used to it,” he declares, pulling Quentin in for a hug around the baby. “Congrats on your headshots. And a haircut that cost more than fifteen dollars.” 

“You’re such a dick,” Quentin grumbles, but he’s hugging Eliot tight around his middle and Eliot can practically hear the smile in his words, so that’s all right. 

“Hey, godfather number two!” Josh, as always, follows Margo back into the conversation. “Are you on the best seller list yet?” 

“I think the book has to be released before they start counting.” Quentin rolls his eyes as he lets go of Eliot, but he looks pleased. 

“Our Q, a published author,” Eliot coos while Margo nudges Quentin with a grin. “We’re all so proud.” 

Quentin hides his face in Eliot’s shoulder. “Shut up. I thought tonight was about Mimi.” 

“We are sophisticated adults capable of celebrating more than one triumph at once.” Quentin’s bashful proximity is always a delight. “Mimi exists, and you’re about to be the next Rick Riordan. Both excellent accomplishments.” 

“On that note,” As usual, Josh has his phone camera at the ready. There hasn’t been a single hour of Mimi’s life left undocumented, and rightly so. “We need godfather pics now that the full set is here.” 

Eliot grins and passes Quentin the baby. He’d planned for this. “I thought you’d never ask.” 

It takes three pictures before Quentin looks down at his own burgundy shirt and then at Eliot’s blazer and Mimi’s overalls. 

“Did you dress us to match?”

Eliot squeezes his arm around Quentin’s waist, looking down at him holding Mimi with a helpless smile. 

“Don’t be silly. I dressed us to _complement_.”

They get some pictures of the three of them, a few with just Eliot, Margo and Mimi, and then a few with all five of them when Julia steps in to play photographer. 

“Oh, these are _definitely_ going on the Chanukkah card,” Josh announces when he gets his phone back. 

“Send them to me, will you?” Quentin asks, still holding Mimi. “I need a new phone background.” 

He smiles at Mimi when he says it, and that sends Eliot’s mind racing with visions of Quentin changing his wallpaper to a picture of the pair of them standing like prom dates with Mimi held between them. 

“He looks good with a baby in his arms.” 

Eliot’s busy watching Josh, Quentin and Julia saunter back to the bar for drinks, Mimi in tow. “God, I know.” 

He blinks, then casts an unappreciative raised eyebrow towards Margo, who’s grinning like the cat who got the canary. 

“You’re making this too easy.” She tucks her arm into Eliot’s elbow. “It’s not even fun to tease you.” 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

It was Margo’s turn to cast him a disparaging look. She was even better at it than he was. 

“You know how long Q’s been dreaming of queer domestic bliss with you.”

“Do I?” 

“You do,” Margo continues, stern. “Dick him down. Buy a condo. Make photogenic surrogate babies. What are you afraid of?” 

_Everything_ , Eliot thinks, watching baby Mimi giggle at Quentin’s funny faces with a distinct sense of longing that would have horrified his twenty-four year old self. _I don’t get to have nice things for free, Bambi._

“I’m only afraid our babies would be cuter than yours,” he says out loud. “And our lifelong friendship would end in bloodshed.” 

Margo grins, sharp. “Damn straight.” 

“Who’s having babies?” Quentin asks, suddenly right beside them, Mimi tucked into one arm and a half pour of red wine in the other.

“Everyone but us, Q, clearly,” Eliot says, taking a sip of his boulevardier. “Can’t you just feel your biological clock ticking?” 

“My uterus is drying up as we speak.” Quentin feigns solemnity, but his cheeks go pink, and fuck, Eliot wants a piece of that. 

“Okay, time for the obligatory Hoberman sister pass-around,” Josh announces, with at least three women on his tail that share his distinct eyebrows. Eliot’s tolerance for Josh has increased at least seventy-eight percent since he aided in providing Eliot with an adorable little mini-Margo to spoil, and so he benevolently indicates that Quentin should allow him custody of his spawn.

“I’m going to go supervise,” Margo declares. “You two keep each other company.” 

With an encouraging wink Margo leaves Eliot with Quentin at one of the high tables next to Mimi’s empty carrier. 

“So…” Quentin sips his wine. “How’s business? Been busy lately?” 

Eliot shrugs. “A few winter weddings. You really look great, Q.” 

Quentin squirms a little. “There was a stylist at the shoot. I’ve probably still got some concealer under my eyes.” 

“No, not just that.” Eliot admires the sheen of Quentin’s chestnut hair in the low light. The curve of his now visible ears. The way his sturdy hands work to clasp the delicate stem of a glass. “I mean, you look...happy.” 

“I think I am.” Quentin looks down at his wine with a half smile. “I think I have been, for long enough that I stopped being surprised every day. But it’s not on accident, you know?”

Eliot looks around the room at his friends, and his goddaughter, enjoying the fruits of a business that he spent years building. “Yeah, I think I do. It’s hard work.” 

“It can be, sometimes. But it’s worth it. I’m just really glad to be here, and be Margo’s friend, and Mimi’s godfather. I’m really happy to be here with you.” 

Eliot indulges in tucking a slip of hair behind Quentin’s ear. “I’m happy to be here with you, too.” 

He’s just thinking how perfect this night has been already when Quentin takes a fortifying breath and puts his wine glass down. 

“The hard work...I did it for myself, but I did it for you too.” Quentin’s cheeks are flushed, but his gaze is perfectly serious as he says: “I wanted to be ready for us when the time came. So I’ve worked hard.”

Eliot’s mouth goes dry. “Ready for us?” 

“Yeah. Do you think—I mean, I know I’m always gonna be kind of a mess—but do you think that’s something you could ever want?” 

Eliot puts down his drink. Is that something he could ever _want_? Quentin—brave Q— has worked hard just so he can put his heart out for Eliot’s clumsy handling. The Quentin Eliot and Margo decided to take under their wing five years ago would never have gone for what he wanted like this, as stumbling as his proposition is. 

“Or maybe that’s a dumb. Maybe I—jesus—never mind, just forget I said anything—“

Okay, maybe he hasn’t changed that much. Eliot’s brain kicks back into gear right when Quentin’s shoulders start creeping up to his ears and he looks around like there might be an available escape route. Eliot grabs his wrist before the instinct to bolt can solidify and spoil all of Eliot’s dreams coming true. 

“Eliot? Really, I just thought—Margo wasn’t particularly subtle—“

“Shhh. Don’t speak.” 

They’re in a hotel technically, with a private bar that’s rentable for events, and that means there are plenty of little alcoves just outside the door where people won’t think to look. Eliot dodges a bunch of mutual friends to duck out the entrance and around the corner until he can tug Quentin into a convenient gap between a luggage cart and a coat rack. It’s a squeeze for the two of them, perfect for an intimate conversation, which is what Eliot intends for this to be. 

He can feel the warmth of Quentin’s body all along his front when Eliot says: “Tell me.” 

“Huh?” 

Eliot feels a little crazy with this. “Tell me about us. How long?”

Quentin swallows. “How long have I—I mean, since we met, El.” 

Eliot closes his eyes and lets that information wash over him. 

“But you weren’t ready then.” Eliot states the obvious without judgement, his hands on Quentin’s waist, under his jacket. He can feel the rapid rise and fall of Quentin’s ribs as he breathes. “Tell me how long we could have had this.” 

Quentin’s hands are curling around Eliot’s forearms, like a handrail he might steady himself on. Eliot’s always loved Quentin’s hands. 

“I’ve been working up my nerve—I guess for maybe a year?” Quentin’s voice is steadying out a little now that Eliot hasn’t said no. Eliot has no intention of saying no. Obviously. “I really did have work to do. Like depression stuff, yeah, but just me stuff, too. And then there was my dad, and then Alice—” 

“I don’t really want to talk about Alice,” Eliot says, not unkindly. 

Quentin’s tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip. “Me neither.” 

“So a year.” Eliot strokes his palms up and down Quentin’s sides. “I could have swept you off your feet, and here I’ve kept you waiting.” 

Quentin’s eyes widen and he shakes his head, even though his cheeks are going beet red. “No, no—I mean, yeah, but I haven’t just been, like, um, tapping my foot or anything, El—don’t think I—” 

In a shadowy corner of one of Manhattan’s more understated luxury hotels, Eliot dips his head and kisses Quentin on the mouth. He keeps it brief and soft, and when he pulls back Quentin’s lips are already half formed around the next word of his stammering sentence, like his brain hadn’t had the chance to catch up to the cliff Eliot just pushed them both off. 

“Come home with me.” The shape of Quentin’s mouth is still tingling on Eliot’s lips. He’s wanted to do that for _years_. “Come home with me, and I’ll make it up to you.” 

Quentin touches his own mouth, eyes wide. “Y-you will?” 

Bravery is hard, but bravado is easy. “I’ll give it to you like you’ve never had it. Everything you’ve been wanting. Anything.” Eliot wets his lips just to watch Quentin’s eyes trace the motion. “You know I’ll make it so good for you.” 

Quentin looks like he might actually pass out. “Oh god.” 

Quentin gets a grip on his lapels and pulls Eliot into another kiss. It’s Eliot's turn to be surprised as Quentin opens his mouth and just...invites him in. Eliot finds the shape of his bottom lip with his tongue, then the roof of his mouth, then it’s only hot and wet and _Quentin._ Their lips slide together like they were made to fit. Quentin’s breath puffs against Eliot’s cheek and it raises goosebumps down his arms.

“Come home with me,” Eliot pleads again when they part with slick lips. “Fuck, Q. Come home and be with me.” 

“Yes.” Quentin is breathless, up on his toes so they can smush their foreheads together and feel. “Yeah, please. Take me there.” 

Eliot gets his hand on the back of Quentin’s neck with a little squeeze and Quentin just goes lax against him. It’s like Quentin is his now. Like Quentin has just been waiting all this time for Eliot to reach out and take him. To guide his head under Eliot’s chin where it belongs and just hold on.

Eliot breathes in the smell of Quentin’s freshly cut hair. He presses his lips to the soft cut of his jaw. Eliot’s going to ruin him for any other man. He’s going to—god, this is his chance. Eliot feels wild with it. Greedy. Selfish. He’s going to steal Quentin away and give him everything. 

“We’re going.” 

Eliot pulls out his phone to shoot a text off to Margo. 

_E: Co-godfathers are dipping out for potentially tearful, definitely kinky sex purposes. Accept all party accolades on my behalf._

_E:..._

_E: Also you were right. Love you Bambi._

They make out in the Uber. Eliot is sure to leave a generous tip. He just can’t keep his hands off. He can’t keep his mouth apart from Quentin’s gorgeous eager mouth. He’s only human. Eliot’s studio loft is closer than Quentin’s Bay Ridge one-bedroom, so it’s his front door that Quentin gets pinned against while Eliot strips him out of his shirt. 

Quentin has good arms. Swimmer’s arms. They’re a lot more toned than Eliot’s, to be honest, but then Eliot’s never been that much for the gym. Being tall and broad shouldered and naturally slender (aided by a mostly liquid diet) tends to pull the wool over most eyes regarding Eliot’s state of physical fitness. Whether or not it’s his bag, Eliot can certainly appreciate the aesthetics of a firm bicep. A well-proportioned deltoid group. Whatever muscle it is that makes Quentin’s forearms look Like That™.

“El?”

Eliot pauses in rubbing his cheek over the fine dark hair that accents those aforementioned forearms.

“Sorry,” he says, not sorry at all as he presses a kiss to Quentin’s wrist. “Just indulging in gay thoughts.” 

Quentin’s eyes crinkle as he smiles. “This seems like the, uh, appropriate time.” 

“Yeah.” Eliot licks over the pad of Quentin’s thumb. “Where were we?”

“I’m pretty sure we were about to have sex.” 

“Oh, definitely.” 

“What are you gonna do to me?” Quentin asks, as if that’s something normal people say outside of pornography and Eliot’s wet dreams. 

“I’m gonna get us both naked and kiss you all over.” 

“Okay.” Quentin nods, all agreeable. “But then you’ll fuck me, right?” 

“If you want.” Eliot’s voice cracks, like he’s sixteen again, but Quentin just grins, laughing at him, and pulls him in for another kiss. He slips his tongue in when Eliot allows it and for a few breathless moments Quentin has him, almost like fucking. Just a lovely, slow exploration of Eliot’s mouth like it’s a pleasure all its own. 

Eliot is hard as a rock and weak in the knees. 

Quentin is a wonderful kisser. 

“Please, El,” Quentin says when they part, hands coming to rest on Eliot’s belt. “Please, fuck me.”

By the time Eliot has him spread out naked on his king sized bed Quentin is begging. 

“Oh, god, please, _please—_ ”

“Shh,” Eliot soothes him while he fingers him open, fingers slick with too much lube. “I’ve got you now.” 

Quentin’s thighs flex around his waist and there’s a promise in that. Eliot wipes his fingers on the sheets and tears open a condom packet. Quentin leans up on his elbows to kiss him and only _years_ of experience allows Eliot to roll the condom on sight unseen because nothing on god’s green earth is going to keep him from kissing Q when he tilts his chin up like that. Then it’s a sweet awkward song and dance of arranging limbs and more lube and finding the right angle and Quentin bearing down as Eliot works his cock in— 

“Oh fuck,” Eliot gasps as he bottoms out. He pulls back, so slow while Quentin breathes through the ache and then he’s pressing his heels against Eliot’s back, his hands fisted in the sheets as he urges Eliot into a slow, deep rhythm. He fucks him and he watches Quentin’s eyes flutter and his mouth go slack and lovely when he finally strokes the right spot. 

“I’ve wanted this so much,” Quentin groans, not even trying to play it cool and Eliot’s fucking shaking with how good it is. “So long, El, you don’t know.” 

“I think I might,” Eliot says, kissing him. Fucking in hard just to hear Quentin whimper. Pulling out only for the pleasure of being able to fuck in deep again and again while Quentin’s cock rubs against his belly. 

“You’re so big.” Eliot never thought Quentin would be much of a talker in bed, but it looks like all of his wildest dreams are coming true as a stray tear leaks down Quentin’s cheek and he murmurs, “You’re fucking me so good. Please don’t stop.” 

“Never,” Eliot promises, and just puts his tongue back in Quentin’s mouth where it belongs. Quentin moans as he kisses him deep, and he braces one arm against the headboard to push himself hard onto Eliot’s cock. 

He’s never felt so good. He’s never felt so _right._ Eliot is fucking Quentin—fucking him _so good—_ and the rest of their gorgeous, beautiful life is lining up before his very eyes. 

Eliot’s going to buy Q a condo. He’s going to give him babies. They’re going to wear coordinating sweaters and throw classy dinner parties on alternating Sundays. Fuck, Margo was right. He’s ready. He wants it all. Eliot is going to give Quentin everything he’s been waiting for. Everything he _deserves_. 

“I’m gonna come,” Quentin says, shocked with pleasure, and of course he is. He’s with Eliot now. It’s going to be nothing but orgasms and hors d'oeuvres and cashmere from here on out. 

“I’ll take care of you,” Eliot promises, because saying the rest out loud would probably come off a little psychotic. 

Quentin’s eyes scrunch closed, and he tips his head back with a gasp as his cock jerks in Eliot's fist. Eliot pulls him through it, squeezing his cock and fucking him and kissing him and just wringing every drop of good feeling out of him he can, until Quentin is panting and loose limbed and squirming under him.

“ _Ah,_ El, please—” 

“Sh, sh, I know,” Eliot says, laughing as he pulls out. “Closed for business.” 

“Sorry.” Quentin winces a little. “Too sensitive. I could suck you off?” 

“It’s alright. I’ll just taste like latex.” Eliot wrinkles his nose at the idea. Only the best dick-sucking circumstances for Quentin Coldwater from now on. “You just lay there and look pretty.” 

“I’m not sure I fit the bill for that,” Quentin murmurs as Eliot strips off the condom and starts to stroke himself. 

“Oh, Q, you do.” Eliot kisses him, jerking himself off steadily on his hands and knees. “Do you have any idea how often I’ve thought of just this? Just looking at you, sweetheart, and touching myself.” 

Quentin swallows, eyes dark again even though his cock is soft and spent and pretty against his thigh. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” Eliot’s close to the edge. “Q—baby— can I?” 

Quentin opens his legs, nodding fast as he leans up for another kiss. Eliot tastes him, savors him, and comes all over him. Quentin whimpers against his lips, and it’s perfect. 

They breathe together until things start to get unpleasantly sticky. Eliot herds Quentin into the shower for a quick rinse and uses up all the hot water because he can’t focus on anything but holding Quentin and kissing him until his mouth feels soft and bruised. They barely talk, the patter of the water on tile and wet skin on skin filling the air like conversation as Eliot indulges in a way he’s never allowed himself. 

He can do this. He can take care of Quentin. 

“El.” Quentin blinks slow, his smile sweet and languid as they share a pillow once Eliot has bundled them both back into bed. The damp ends of his short hair are curling a little against the pillow and Eliot wants to kiss every one. “Are we—can we be together now? Just—can we stay together?”

Eliot pets grateful fingers over his cheek, the first hint of stubble tingling against his fingertips. 

“Yeah, Q,” he promises. “We’re gonna be together.” 

It’s the truth, and it’s a lie. Eliot just doesn’t know it yet. He’s almost asleep with Quentin in his arms when his phone buzzes on the nightstand. It’s a text from Bambi.

_Love you always, bitch. Go get him ;)_

* * *

Nothing that happens after 2 AM ever feels real. It’s a place for nightmares, and long walks with sore feet after the trains stop running, and the first signs of the hangover to come. So when Eliot’s phone rings at quarter to three, he answers without thinking.

“Hello?” His voice is rough with sleep. The room is pitch dark except for the red light of the clock on his bedside blinking at him with a mocking edge. 

“Is this Eliot Waugh?” 

“This is he.” Eliot sits up, the sheets falling around his waist and leaving a chill over his chest. If this is some kind of telemarketer— 

“Mr. Waugh, I’m sorry to disturb you. I’m calling from the emergency room at Mt. Sinai. We have you on file as the emergency contact and next of kin for a Mrs. Margo Hanson-Hoberman?” 

The air in the room goes sharp in Eliot’s lungs. 

“Yes, I am,” he says slowly. “Can I ask the reason for your call?” 

“I see that your number is a local area code, sir. Are you able to come to speak with us in person?” 

“Yes, I’m in Manhattan, but can you just tell me—” 

“Unfortunately I’m not at liberty to disclose confidential medical information over the phone. If you can come to the emergency room I’ll be sure the staff is expecting you.” 

“I don’t understand.” Eliot fumbles for the bedside lamp. “Where’s Margo? Will you put her on the phone, please? Or Joshua Hoberman. I’m sure he’s with her.” 

In fact, Josh would be her next of kin. Not Eliot. Not anymore.

“Sir…” The voice over the phone hesitates. “Please come as soon as possible.” 

That’s all the information that Eliot can get out of them. He gets out of bed and goes about finding something like clothes. A slow pit of dread forms in his belly as he finds a shirt, and pants—no belt, no tie, for some reason he knows it doesn’t matter. Then he sees Quentin, still curled in the bed. All of Eliot’s dreams come true. 

Eliot pauses before touching him. This feels like a dream. Last night is beginning to feel like it was a dream too. 

“Q. Wake up.” 

Eliot shakes him, and the touch feels far away. 

“S’matter?” Quentin mumbles, his brow a grumpy furrow. 

“Something’s wrong.” Eliot swallows. “Q, we have to go to the hospital.” 

Quentin blinks awake. “What?” 

“I’m—” Eliot takes a deep breath. The pit of dread widens. “I’m Margo’s emergency contact. They called me. We have to go.” 

Quentin stares at him, for a long beat. He opens his mouth. Closes it. Then he gets up and puts on yesterday’s clothes without saying a word. Eliot focuses on breathing and calling an Uber, not on how familiar Quentin is with hospitals. How he knows, probably, what the hospital will and won’t disclose over the phone, from personal experience. 

He doesn’t ask, and Quentin, usually a nervous talker, stays silent. He tries to hold his hand in the Uber, and Eliot flinches away from the touch. 

“Sorry,” he says. “I—sorry.” 

Quentin just takes his hand back. Eliot should feel bad but he can’t feel anything except the gnawing anxiety. He checks his calls, his messages, Instagram. There’s nothing since Margo’s last text. 

_Love you always, bitch._

Eliot puts his phone away for the rest of the drive.

Even at three in the morning no emergency room in the city is totally empty, and they have to wait a few minutes while a kid with a possible case of alcohol poisoning is wheeled past. They check in and sit in two uncomfortable chairs, watching the double doors that lead further into the hospital. Margo must be somewhere inside. Eliot doesn’t understand why they won’t just let him talk to her. 

After ten minutes that feel like an hour, Eliot’s name is called. A kind looking nurse leads him—and Quentin, they don’t ask permission—down a short hall and into an empty family waiting room. 

Then the kind nurse explains to Eliot that his best friend and her husband are dead. 

There was an accident, driving home from the party, and they died. 

And that’s...well. Eliot already knew, didn’t he? If Margo could have called she would have. If Josh had been pacing in the waiting room Eliot would never have been notified. It all makes sense now.

“But,” Quentin says beside him, his first words since Eliot pulled him along out of the Uber. “We just saw them a few hours ago. I don’t…I don’t understand.” 

The nurse—very nicely—starts again from the beginning. 

Slick roads.

Drunk driver.

Head on collision. 

All resuscitation methods exhausted. 

Died in surgery.

Died. 

Died. 

_Died._

A strange rushing sound fills Eliot’s ears, and black spots dance before his vision. He hears Quentin’s bright panicked _fuck, Eliot_ before his knees give out.


	2. Chapter 2

Quentin barely gets Eliot into a chair. He watches, useless as the nurse tries to help him put his head between his knees. 

“Don’t touch me.” Eliot’s voice is sharp and thin as he pushes them both away. “Please— _fuck—_ nobody touch me.” 

Quentin flinches away from Eliot like he’s been burned. God, just hours ago they were making love, falling asleep curled up in bed together. The perfect night. The start of a perfect life, maybe. And while they were asleep, their best friends—

He shakes that thought away with a physical shudder. Eliot looks like he might be sick, his face death pale as he covers his mouth with his long elegant fingers and breathes through his nose. 

A slow, recalibrating thought worms it’s way through the shock to Quentin’s lips.

“Where’s Mimi?” 

Eliot’s head snaps up. “Oh my god.” 

The nurse looks at them both with pity, and more than a little exhaustion. “Mimi, was that a nickname? I told you, Ms. Hanson is—“ 

Eliot waves aside her words, a look of irritation on his face. “No. Where’s _Mimi_? Margo Eleanor Hanson-Hoberman. She’s a baby, about three months old. She would have been in the car with them.” 

“I’m afraid I don’t—“

“Where’s my best friend’s fucking _daughter_?” Eliot’s voice rises to a near shout as he stands. “Is she alive?” 

A fist squeezes Quentin’s heart as the nurse’s brow furrows and she flips through the chart in her hands. Only hours ago he’d held her, Mimi heavy and squirming and already staring up at him with so much trust, proof that he and Eliot would be tied together forever in some way because of this little girl that they both already loved so much. If—god, if anything had happened to her, Quentin doesn’t know— 

“Oh— _oh_ , the baby! Yes, bless her, she’s fine. She was safe in the car seat. They build those like tanks nowadays.” 

There’s the sound of a sob, and Quentin realizes it’s come from _him_. He has to turn away, hand over his mouth, as reality finally hits him. Margo and Josh are gone. Two of his best friends in the world, and their daughter is somewhere in this hospital, barely three months old and all alone. He’s soaking his sleeve trying to wipe the tears from his eyes while the nurse explains something to Eliot about _screened for head injuries_ and _CPS_ and _next of kin_. 

“The next of kin you’re looking for is us. Eliot Waugh and Quentin Coldwater.”

There’s some more murmuring that Quentin’s swimming thoughts can’t process—why did this woman’s voice have to be so kind, so patient?—followed by Eliot’s sharp demand: 

“Check your paperwork and get us in a room with our goddaughter before I get a fucking lawyer on the phone.” 

Quentin is going to have to call his agent. It’s a bizarre thought to have, but there it is. He’s going to have to get an extension from his publisher on his sequel, the one he hadn’t even told anyone he’d been contracted for. He’s going to have to call his agent, and Julia, and...everybody. He and Eliot are the first to know and they’re going to have to call everyone. They’re going to have to relive this moment with everyone they know. Over and over again. 

Fuck. 

“Q.” Eliot is waiting for him by the door, the now harried nurse already outside. 

“I’m good.” Quentin takes a deep breath. There’s nothing more important than finding Mimi right now. “I’m good, let’s go.”

“She’s been cleared,” the nurse says as she leads them to another room off the newborn nursery. “She’s got a little scrape above her left eyebrow but it’s been cleaned. Probably won’t even scar.” 

Mimi is whimpering from the inside of one of those clear plastic bassinets they use for new babies. At the sound of their footsteps she lets out a pitiful cry. 

Quentin asks, “Can we—“ but Eliot is already across the room. 

“Yes, you can hold her,” she says, voice gentler now as Eliot fishes Mimi out of the crib and clutches her tenderly to his chest. 

“Baby girl. Oh, my baby girl—They left you all alone, didn’t they? And in this scary place, I’m so sorry.” 

Safe in Eliot’s familiar arms Mimi’s cries soften to a soft gurgle. Eliot murmurs to her and kisses her fuzzy baby hair, his eyes shut tight against the world as he rocks her. Quentin watches and tries to breathe. 

“There’ll be a CPS agent here to talk to you both. And probably a lot of paperwork.” 

Quentin just nods. If he talks now he’ll just start crying again. The nurse leaves them for now and suddenly the tiny room seems a mile wide. With Quentin and Eliot on opposite sides. 

He steps closer. 

“Is she alright?” 

“She’s perfect.” 

Eliot’s hand slides under her bottom so Quentin can stroke his palm up and down her back. She’s so small. His hand nearly covers all of her. 

“Q.” Eliot’s voice is barely more than a whisper, and Quentin can feel it like a breath against his cheek. “Are you in or are you out?” 

“What?” Quentin stares at Eliot, his eyes too haunted to cry and Mimi whimpering in his arms. 

“No one else is taking her. Bambi chose us. But if...if I’m doing this alone then tell me right now.” 

They’re so close, and Mimi tucked between them. Eliot’s voice is soft despite his emphatic words. It would be sweet, if you didn’t know. If Mimi hadn’t just lost her parents, Quentin his best friends, and Eliot his _soulmate_ —oh god, Eliot without Margo, Quentin can’t even wrap his head around it—

If it weren’t for the desperation in Eliot’s eyes. If he weren’t begging, pleading, despite his cold words, flinching away from Quentin’s touch, _don’t leave me alone in this_. Here in the breath of space between them, the sterile smell of the hospital in their lungs and the fluorescent lights sapping the warmth from their skin, a promise is either going to be kept or broken. 

“Of course you’re not alone,” Quentin says. “I’m in. All in.” 

Eliot’s eyes flash, but he doesn’t waste time. “Then I think it’s time to call Julia.” 

Quentin makes the call. There’s a chair in the room and Eliot sits, his hands trembling even as he soothes the baby in his arms. Julia picks up on the third ring. 

“Q?” Her voice is heavy with sleep, but with the edge of alarm that comes with being friends with Quentin through the worst of his depressive episodes. “It’s almost four AM. Are you okay?”

Quentin’s throat goes tight again as Eliot cradles Mimi, pressing his brow to hers and still murmuring to her as ever so slowly his shoulders begin to shake. 

“No.” Quentin’s voice breaks over the word as Eliot finally cries. “No, we’re not okay. We’re at the hospital. Jules, Eliot and I need your help _right now._ ”

* * *

This is not the story of a custody battle.

Bambi is—was, _fuck_ —good at her job, and her and Josh’s joint will is airtight. Immediate legal guardians of Margo Eleanor Hanson-Hoberman in the event of her parents’ untimely deaths? 

Eliot Waugh and Quentin Coldwater. 

That doesn’t make Eliot flinch any less when Ruth Hoberman puts her arms out to hold her granddaughter. It’s been hours, and Eliot hasn’t let Mimi go, because if he does what will he have left? 

“It’s okay, El,” Quentin reassures him, standing close enough to touch but keeping his hands to himself—which is its own can of worms but for now _thank god_. “Come on, it’s Josh’s mom. She just wants to see her for a minute.”

Eliot swallows, and his voice is rough when he says _sorry_ and puts Mimi in her grandmother’s arms. 

“It’s alright, I’m glad you’re looking out for her.” Josh’s mom looked to be in her mid-sixties, her gray hair cut short above her ears. Her voice was low and soft but her eyes were red-rimmed and tight. Around her neck she wore a long chain with a half dozen little stick figure charms. A grandmother necklace, maybe. “You must be Eliot. Margo talked about you all the time.” 

Eliot blinks at the past tense but nods, his throat tight. Ruth smiles down at Mimi, and it’s one of the saddest expressions he’s ever seen. 

“Hello, sweetheart. You’ve been so brave, haven’t you?” 

Mimi blinks sleepily up at her grandmother and coos. 

“You take after your mother, lucky you, but I see that Hoberman nose, little one.” Ruth taps her nose with one finger, and then Mimi’s, the same contour in miniature. “We’ll see your dad in you yet.” 

She sniffles, and a single tear hit’s Mimi’s onesie. 

“Mrs. Hoberman, maybe you should sit down,” Quentin suggests, but Ruth shakes her head. 

“Let me see your phone,” she asks instead. Quentin glances at Eliot but hands it over, and Ruth puts her number in his contacts. 

“Josh told me about you both. He trusted you, and so will I. But you don’t strike me as the type that’s changed many diapers.” She hands Quentin back his phone. “I’ve seen more than my share. So. If you need anything…” 

Eliot sees his own black depths of grief mirrored in her eyes and realizes he’s standing in front of the only person on earth who understands him right now. 

“Thank you.” 

She clasps his hand, briefly. “Don’t think on it. Now, this little girl should be home to sleep in her own crib. Do you boys—“

“I have a key.” 

Eliot has the whole condo. Margo and Josh left it to him. Apparently.

“Do you want to come with us? You could stay with her, for a little while.” Eliot doesn’t want anyone in Margo’s apartment. _He_ doesn’t even want to be there. He wants to find a cold dark corner somewhere and curl up like a wounded animal. But Mimi’s warm sleeping weight in his arms is keeping him tethered to reality, and he’d be the world’s biggest asshole not to consider that Mrs. Hoberman might be comforted by her granddaughter right now. 

“I’ll stop by later. Right now I need to take care of my son.” 

That’s—Eliot didn’t even think.

“Bambi. Is there—Do I need to—“

There’s a hand on his arm, soft and feminine. Julia. “We’re going to handle it,” she promises. “You and Quentin take Mimi home, now.” 

Eliot doesn’t have the wherewithal to object, and so he lets Ruth hand him back Mimi. Quentin guides him out of the hospital and into an Uber. 

The sun is just coming up when Eliot keys them into Margo and Josh’s Madison Avenue condo. There’s still a light on from last night. A pair of Bambi’s heels on the floor by the welcome mat where she must have kicked them off after work. Some dishes in the sink. 

For a minute Eliot lets himself believe this has all been a horrible dream. 

“We should probably try to get some sleep, before Mimi really wakes up for the day,” Quentin says, shattering the illusion. “People will be coming by to help, I imagine. We’ll have to go pack, and stuff. It’ll probably get pretty busy in here.” 

“You should have the guest room.” Eliot knows regular sleep is a big part of managing his depression. “I’ll take the couch.”

“Oh.” Eliot turns at the odd pitch of Quentin’s voice. He has Mimi asleep against his chest but he’s looking at Eliot. “I guess I just assumed we could share.” 

The idea of going to sleep right now in a bed with Quentin—holding him, maybe, burrowing in together and just finding some kind of skin-to-skin comfort—makes Eliot want to fall to his knees and beg. It also makes his skin crawl. 

He wets his lips. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I need...I need some space, right now.” 

“Space for now, or space forever?” Quentin holds Mimi closer, like he’s taking comfort from her weight. “With...everything going on I’m trying to keep perspective. So if last night meant something different to you than it did to me, can you tell me? I’m here, El, no matter what. So please tell me.” 

It’s not fucking fair. They should have had time, and instead it feels like every tether to the world Eliot had is gone or twisted out of shape. 

“I meant everything.” Eliot forces out. “I did. But I—right now, Q, I—“

Eliot just presses a hand to his heart, and half expects to find a hole in his chest. He doesn’t know how to talk about it. He doesn’t know how to _think_ about it. 

“I wanted to,” Eliot says, half nonsense. “I _really_ wanted to.” 

They were ready. Condos and cashmere and holding hands at the farmer’s market. Eliot should have known better. 

Quentin’s half smile is kinder than Eliot deserves. “Okay.” His eyes are wet again. “It’s okay. Consider it shelved. I’ll take the guest room.” 

“Can I—” Eliot catches himself putting his arms out for Mimi. He feels like a dick, pushing Quentin away and then asking for the comfort of holding the baby but he can’t help himself. “I can put Mimi down, I mean.” 

“Yeah, sure. Thanks.” Quentin gives Mimi up and then turns away, unsubtly rubbing at his eyes. “I’m just going to…” 

Eliot doesn’t know what Quentin is just going to do, but he nods and the door to the guest room closes behind him with a soft click. Eliot sighs relief as the house falls into silence, and he takes Mimi into the nursery. 

It’s a small room—Manhattan real estate is at a premium even for Bambi—done up in soft yellow and cream and pale gray stripes on the linens. Margo hadn’t wanted a theme, so Mimi could decide for herself when she got older. Eliot had played a sly hand of gift giving and offhand advice for the baby registry until he’d gotten what _he_ wanted, which was a few little touches of lily of the valley. Just a little something here and there to pull the room together. There was a framed botanical print on the wall, and an embroidered skirt for the bottom of the crib. His favorite was the porcelain bathroom set he’d found for the changing table. Little white blossoms with their spindly green fronds. Proof that Margo had included him even here in the most precious part of her life. 

His breath shudders, but Eliot is cried out. Mimi coos against his shoulder, her tiny hand curled into his wrinkled shirt collar. They’ve both lost their most important person in the world, and then some. 

“Baby girl, what do we do now?” 


	3. Chapter 3

There’s a period of about two weeks that follows that night at the hospital in which time Eliot never holds anything heavier than the weight of Mimi in his arms. There’s too many people around, friends helping with grocery shopping and laundry and paperwork. He doesn’t have to cook, as there’s an eternal line of hollow eyed Hoberman sisters at the door with a casserole in hand. At the door of Margo and Josh’s condo, because that’s where Eliot lives now. 

“You really don’t have to—” Quentin says after day three of the homemade food delivery service, unbelievably kind as always. “You’re all going through so much too, you don’t have to take care of us.”

“Of course we do,” Josh’s oldest sister says, already preheating their oven. “We’re family.” 

So they learn to accept the help and settle into the apartment as best as they can. Eliot lives there with Quentin and Mimi and all of Margo and Josh’s stuff, haven’t you heard? He doesn’t have anything of his own that didn’t fit into his Prada roller suitcase or that Fen didn’t think to grab for him from his office. 

God, Fen. He’d been thinking of working her up to directing all their non-wedding events, letting her take the slow track up to full partner in his event business, but right now she’s the only thing holding _Cottage Events_ together. Eliot is good for a signature or a final approval on a project and that’s it. Fen at least is proving up to the task while Eliot deals with an infant who’s used to breastfeeding and a new apartment full of emotional landmines and his grieving, clinically depressed not-boyfriend. 

Eliot is grieving too, whatever that means. Mostly it means he doesn’t feel anything. He just heats up the food according to the latest Hoberman sister’s instruction and makes sure Quentin goes to therapy and his scheduled swims at the Y and he checks Mimi in her crib ten times a night to make sure she’s still breathing. After he’s absolutely positive of the rise and fall of her little chest he makes his bed on the couch and lets the misery out with one of Margo’s stupid designer athleisure hoodies clutched pathetically to his chest. It feels as though he’ll never sleep again but every night without fail the exhaustion of childcare and having his heart carved out with a rusty spoon drags him into something resembling unconsciousness. He comes to breakfast red-eyed from crying and Quentin is good enough not to comment.

There’s a funeral—it’s important to Josh’s family to have it as soon as possible, and Eliot has no beliefs to offer as an objection. He presses his black suit to perfection, does his hair, lines his eyes, and then spends most of the brief ceremony vomiting in the funeral home’s cramped men’s room. He’s rinsing out his mouth when Quentin finds him.

“I’m sorry,” Eliot says, voice rough. 

Quentin pushes Eliot’s ruined hair off his clammy forehead. His cheeks are wet with tears. 

“I understand, El. Everyone understands.” 

Eliot watches the burial feeling like a ghost in his own body. He’s been to funerals, but always in honor of older people, with _they lived a good life_ the mantra of the mourners. This funeral feels more like the ones you see on TV shows, with the attendants clad in flat black and everyone numb with dull grief. The matching caskets were for people who had barely gotten to live at all, and once Eliot has that thought it echoes in his head for the entire service. A tragedy, the officiant says. _Such a tragedy._

It’s over quick though, and then he and Quentin take Mimi home.

A week later in the process of giving Mimi her morning bottle Eliot realizes that for the first time since they moved in there’s no one in the apartment. It’s eleven o’clock on a Tuesday and all of their friends are at work. None of Josh’s sisters are here trying to feed them or clean anything. The house is quiet. Just Quentin, Eliot, and a four month old baby. 

“El?” 

Eliot jumps a little, and Mimi’s little brow furrows in displeasure. After a month Eliot has been exposed to more than just her pleasant moods. Primarily she doesn’t care for being jostled, which is fair. 

“Sorry, sweetheart. Did you ask me something, Q?” 

Quentin has his laptop open and some notes spread out on the table, but he’s looking up from his phone. Eliot feels like he hasn’t really looked at him in a month. His eyes have darker circles than usual, and he hasn’t shaved today, but he still looks good. Still like his Q. 

When was the last time Eliot shaved? 

“I was saying Julia wants to take me out to lunch. I thought it might be nice to spend a little time with her.” 

“Sure. Of course. You should.” 

“You could come,” Quentin continues. “I’m sure Penny or Kady would come hang out with Mimi for an hour or two.” 

Eliot hums, concentrating on Mimi’s bottle again. “I don’t think so. Besides, you should have some one-on-one time with your—” he was about to say _best friend_ , but he swerves “—with Julia.” 

“We could come back afterward. I mean, I’m coming back anyway, obviously, but I mean me and Julia could stay here and maybe you could take some time out, too.” A pause. “Fen might have mentioned to me that she’s been trying to get you out of the house.” 

“Fen is sweet but her idea of comfort is a lesbian bar and four vodka sodas. I’m better off here, trust me.”

“I mean we’re still on a learning curve, but, like, we’re doing okay. You should let Fen take you out. Have a couple of drinks. Or more. I’d be the last person to judge you if you needed it.” 

Eliot feels impossibly tired when he says. “Q, I haven’t had a drink since the party.” 

“The party?” 

“The _party_. Before.” 

There’s only one “before” in their lives. 

“Oh.” Eliot watches him count the days in his head. He knows how his friends expect him to cope. He’d never needed bereavement as an excuse to keep his full flask on hand. “Well, you could.” 

Eliot shakes his head. “I really can’t.” 

“It’s—I mean it’s up to you, but I don’t think it would be like _bad parenting_ or anything if you needed to—” 

“Q.” Eliot swallows, and for a second he feels the absolute weight of grief hanging like a millstone around his neck. He holds Mimi secure against his chest and tries to remember how to breathe. “If I start, I’ll never stop. So I won’t.” 

Quentin’s brow furrows, but then Mimi gurgles, her bottle empty and her belly full.

“Okay.” Quentin puts his hand out for the bottle and adds it to the rack in the dishwasher while Eliot puts a cloth over his shoulder to help Mimi burp. Funny how something like that can become habit in such a short time. “Okay, yeah. Then I guess...if you ever need, um, help. With that. I’m not—you know—an expert, but I’m here. Here to help.” 

“Thanks.” 

Eliot had forgotten just how good it felt to be on the receiving end of Quentin Coldwater’s smile. It’s a tiny, shy thing, but even though he hasn’t done anything to earn it Eliot can tell Q is proud of him. 

It might be the first good thing he’s felt in a month. It’ll only be a matter of time before he fucks it up.

* * *

Mimi has a bad week and so Quentin and Eliot do too. 

It turns out that not all infants sleep through the night at four and a half months old, and that upheavals—like say the sudden death of two loving parents and a complete shift to bottle feeding—can cause a backslide. So Mimi, who they all thought had set some kind of world record for an infant sleeping regularly through the night, now wakes up crying every two hours. 

Quentin spent the last ten years working really hard. He always takes his meds, and he sees this therapist every week, and he swims three days a week at the Y because exercise is good for endorphins, _don’t you know?_

But he needs to sleep. When he doesn’t sleep, he’s irritable and doesn’t get his writing done and he forgets things, which is all aside from any flare ups in his major depressive disorder. The last few weeks have been a slow slide towards a mental place Quentin doesn’t like to be. He’s been obsessive about making sure he takes his meds and keeping track of things with his therapist’s help, but it’s everything he can do lately to get out of bed. 

If Quentin is struggling, Eliot is drowning. He’s not drinking, as far and Quentin knows, but the circles under his eyes are more than just skin deep. It’s like something in Eliot is missing, and what’s left of him only has space for Mimi. He’s taken up a weird habit, spending hours on the balcony with an unlit cigarette in his hand. It’s like he doesn’t want to be in the house but can’t stand to be far from Mimi even to take a walk or smoke. 

Quentin finally puts it together after a particularly brutal night. After a stressful visit to the pediatrician, Mimi has been diagnosed with colic. It’s nothing serious and should resolve itself with time, but that doesn’t make the endless nights of crying any easier. The sterile smell and fluorescent lights of the doctor’s office don’t bring up good memories either. They get Mimi home and down for a nap and Quentin sits at the kitchen table with his laptop and watches Eliot flinch every time his eye catches one of Margo’s pictures on the wall. 

The apartment is still nearly the same as it was before its owners died. Other than the bottles in the medicine cabinet and the food eaten out of the cabinets everything is almost exactly the same and it’s because Eliot wants it that way. Quentin has (gently) suggested more than once that they should think about packing up some of Josh and Margo’s things—to put in storage at least, so they can have the space they need to work and sleep and not be reminded of their dead best friends by _every single object in the house_. Eliot has listened to Quentin’s suggestions, but with the exception of Josh’s clothes, whose removal by Mrs. Hoberman he didn’t even seem to notice, he takes Quentin’s words and puts them in a drawer just like the card for the bereavement counselor Quentin tried to offer him. 

It’s affecting Quentin. The apartment. He knows it must be affecting Eliot, but they’re nearly four months in and Eliot still curls up on the couch every night. It has to stop.

He hears the slide of the glass door to the cramped balcony. This is probably the worst time to bring it up but Quentin hasn’t slept more than three consecutive hours in a week and his filter isn’t what it should be.

“El?” 

Eliot jumps, one foot out the door. “Yeah? Do you need me?” 

“No, I’m fine. Do you think maybe you should lay down for a while?” 

“Me?” Eliot’s brow furrows. He drags his fingers through his hair, which is getting long. Two months ago Eliot would have never done that. He’d be worried about breaking up his curls. 

“Yeah. Mimi is actually down for now. You should get some sleep. Real sleep. Take my bed, if—if you want.” Eliot opens his mouth but Quentin barrels on. “Or you could sleep in the other room. I’ll help you change the sheets—” 

“The couch is fine, and I’m not tired.” 

“The couch is an Ikea nightmare. We’re both exhausted, and there’s an entire bedroom right down the hall that’s been sitting empty for two months.” 

Quentin winces. He hadn’t meant that to be so sharp. Eliot’s expression goes strangely flat. 

“That’s Margo’s room.” 

“We can make it your room. ”

“No.” 

“The condo is yours, Eliot. Margo left it to you, and I know you sublet your apartment, so maybe—” Quentin wets his lips, nerves a live thing in his stomach. “Maybe you should try actually living here?” 

Eliot slides the door closed, and it has a ring of warning about it. “Last I checked I haven’t exactly been transient.” 

“You live out of a carry-on suitcase. You haven’t got any bottles in the shower, and I know your normal hair routine takes like six, at least. You won’t touch anything. You aren’t—you aren’t taking care of yourself.” Quentin tries a different tack. “I can sleep in the master, if it bothers you. I’ll get my stuff out of the guest room and you can—” 

“ _No._ ” 

“Then what? Are we going to live the rest of our lives here with a walk-in closet full of Margo’s suits?” It’s a step too far, but the snowball is already rolling down the hill. Quentin runs his hands through his hair. “This isn’t—god, being in here with everything the same and their pictures on every wall—it’s not healthy.” 

“Not ‘healthy’?” Eliot’s eyes narrow. “And we should do what about that, exactly? Clean sweep? Tidy up? Do pictures of my dead best friend not _spark joy_ for you, Quentin?”

“You know that’s not what I’m saying. I just think we have to consider the fact that it would be slightly less continually traumatic for both of us if this apartment actually looked like we were its permanent residents.” 

That was, well, a lot of words. Quentin is still scanning them back to see where he fucked up when Eliot replies. 

“You want to get rid of them. To get rid of her.” 

“I want you to have a _bedroom_ to sleep in.” 

Eliot purses his lips. He drops his unlit cigarette. He goes to the door, grabbing his jacket on the way. 

“Where are you going?"

Eliot turns back and Quentin flinches. He forgot that when he’s sad Eliot doesn’t hide himself away like Quentin does. He forgot that when Eliot is hurting he goes cold, and he turns cruel. 

“I’m going for a walk.” Eliot’s eyes are flat, and he’s half smiling. Quentin hates it. “And maybe, when I come back, I’ll be ready to throw out all of Margo’s shit. We can put her closet on the curb, and do a little redecorating montage, and then I won’t be sad anymore!” 

Quentin’s heart plummets. “Stop it. You know that’s not what I want.” 

“I’ll turn into gay fucking Andy Griffith, just for you.” 

“Jesus Christ, Eliot—”

“And we’ll fuck every night in the master bedroom without one little thing to remind us that we stole it from our best friends, along with their orphan daughter. Perfect, really, our own little queer family. I’m sure it’s just what you’ve always—” 

“ _Will you shut the fuck up?_ ” 

From Mimi’s bedroom, there’s a low wail. Eliot’s knuckles go white on the doorknob, but he doesn’t turn back. 

“You woke up the baby.” 

And then he’s gone. The door slams and Mimi only squawks louder because of the noise. 

Fuck. Quentin rubs at his eyes, unsurprised when his sleeves come away wet. He’s always been an angry crier. Raised voices? Waterworks. His therapist has a lot of thoughts about that.

“God damn it.” He doesn’t want to yell at Eliot. He doesn’t want to hear the cruel things Eliot can say the minute he gets defensive. He doesn’t want Eliot to leave and not know when he’ll come back. He doesn’t want to be alone. “ _Fuck_.” 

His hands shake as he lifts Mimi out of her crib. She’s red-faced and squalling, tugging on the collar of Quentin’s t-shirt once she gets a grip. 

“It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m sorry. I know you don’t feel well.” Quentin can’t stop hiccuping, and every other thought is Eliot’s cold meanness and the rest are of his mom for some reason. She got so cold, always, after the worst of the fights. 

“No one’s mad at you,” he murmurs, stroking up and down Mimi’s back. “We had a fight but it wasn’t about you, I promise. We love you so much. We love you no matter what.” 

Quentin is run ragged, and Eliot just broke his heart again, and Mimi just _won’t stop crying_. Still careful—always careful with Mimi, always—he collapses into the rocking chair in the corner of the nursery and pulls out his phone. 

“Jules?” Quentin’s voice is a pathetic little warble when his best friend picks up. “I think we need some help.” 


	4. Chapter 4

By the time he makes the third circle around the block Eliot is fully aware that he’s been a total and colossal asshole. Shame is a live thing in his belly, knotted up with the lingering anger and slimy awful misery. He hurt Q. His Q, who writes books for ten year olds and wears jackets with elbow patches and let Eliot break his heart but still stuck around to raise a baby who won’t let them sleep for more than three hours at a time. 

Eliot hurt him. He’s sure that he did, because besides training waitstaff and coordinating floral arrangements Eliot’s expertise is in lashing out to make sure no one ever prods at his tender underbelly.

Fuck. 

Eliot punishes himself for another hour and then he goes back to the apartment. When he lets himself in Julia is sitting on the couch in the living room in an immaculate robin's egg blue pant suit. She looks ready to prosecute, but Eliot’s pleading guilty.

“I fucked up.” 

“Uh, yeah,” Julia agrees. She stands. “And now you’re going to stay with Fen for the night.” 

The bottom falls out of Eliot’s stomach. “Q doesn’t want me here?” 

“Quentin isn’t here either. I sent him to my place. I called Ruth Hoberman, and she’s going to come stay with Mimi—” The panic must be clear on Eliot’s face because Julia continues “—just for tonight. Mimi will be fine with her grandmother for _one night_ while you and Q cool off and get some sleep. You guys fucking need it. You look like something they scraped of the late night R.” 

“Don’t sugar coat it for me, by all means.” 

“Oh, you feel up to jokes now?” 

Eliot swallows. “Not really.” 

“That’s what I thought.” Julia hands him his packed toiletries bag. “Quentin is now literally the person who cares about you the most in this world. So get in the Uber I just called you, take the melatonin Fen’s going to offer, and when you’ve got your head screwed back on, spend some time thinking about how you want to talk to him in the future.”

Eliot is really fucking tired. So he gets in the Uber. He takes the melatonin. He sleeps for a solid eighteen hours. 

“Breakfast!” Fen announces at five PM when Eliot finally rolls off her futon and back into consciousness. She makes him the biggest ham and cheese omelette he’s ever seen and by the time he’s halfway through he feels less like an extra from _Night of the Living Dead_.

“Um.” Eliot turns down Fen’s offer of champagne in his orange juice. “How are things? At work?” 

“Fine.” Fen waves aside his concerns. “You know how February is. Although you remember Rafe? He’s full time now.” 

“Oh.” 

“We can afford it,” Fen assures him. “And we can afford me at the helm for a few more months. But we’re going to need you back for wedding season.” 

Eliot counts the months in his head. “I can do more now.” 

Fen looks at him. “No, you can’t.” 

“Emails,” Eliot negotiates. “And a few client meetings.” 

“Just emails, and I’ll let you review the vendor contracts.” 

“I thought I was in charge, here.” 

“Whatever you say, boss.” 

Eliot sighs and lets Fen cut him up some cantaloupe. His phone buzzes on the arm of the couch and it’s a message from Quentin. Well, it’s three messages, technically. 

_Q: Just woke up._

_Q: we really needed to sleep, haha._

_Q:..._

_Q: should we meet back at home and talk?_

Eliot is so relieved to hear from him that he responds right away. 

_E: I can be there in twenty_

Eliot lets himself back into the condo with a tupperware full of cantaloupe under his arm that Fen makes him promise to return and a distinct feeling of anxiety. Ruth puts her finger to her lips when she spots him from her seat at the kitchen island, pointing her thumb over her shoulder towards the nursery. Mimi must be asleep, which is a huge relief in and of itself. 

“There’s a ziti keeping warm in the oven,” Ruth tells him softly as he puts Fen’s melon in the fridge. “I didn’t want to meddle but Mimi finally settled down and I needed to keep my hands busy. I hope you don’t mind.” 

“No, no, that’s really kind of you.” 

“You need to eat more. You’ve lost weight since—” Ruth’s eyes go tight. “Since the last time I saw you.” 

Eliot hasn’t really been thinking about his appearance, which says a lot about just how close to rock bottom he is. He’s not sure he wants to look too closely in a mirror, but he can feel his hair push against his collar at the back of his neck. The way his cuffs are a little too loose around his wrists. Slovenly, by his standards. Bambi would not approve. 

“I’ll try,” he promises. “Thank you. For helping. We’ve been doing out best, but the last couple days were just—”

Eliot doesn’t know exactly what happens, except between one moment and the next he’s half bent over so five-foot-three Mrs. Hoberman can reach to pull him into a tight hug. 

“You’re doing great,” she assures him, patting his back. “I remember my first. You’re doing just fine, honey.” 

Eliot was probably fifteen the last time he got a hug from a mom. He returns it, a little uncertain, but it’s...nice. Nice, and something he can have tragic queer thoughts about later. 

“Um, is Q—” 

“He’s on the balcony. And Mimi’s asleep, so you go talk and I’ll make myself scarce. You’ll hear if she wakes up, trust me.” 

“Okay.” Now that he looks he can see the shape of Q through the foggy glass, perched on the mostly decorative chair Margo kept out there for appearances and secret cigarettes. Eliot slides the door open and he jumps a little, before scooting out of the chair to make room. It’s a postage stamp balcony, and once Eliot slides the door shut again he realizes just how close a space it is with two grown men filling it. 

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

It’s probably the closest he’s been to Q in months. Close enough to feel his warmth as he leans against the rail. He’s still a little gray, but his hair is damp from the shower and he’s wearing a clean hoodie. Looking at him out here in the cold air Eliot realizes that maybe Quentin’s been doing more than just grieving, the last couple of weeks. Maybe if Eliot had spent more time looking at Q instead of pretending he was the only person in the world who’s ever experienced loss he would have picked up the signs and been able to help instead of make things worse.

“I’m sorry.” The words feel flimsy in his mouth, but that’s how this conversation needs to start. Quentin half smiles, and it’s more sad than anything else. 

“I figured you would be.” 

“Really. I—what I said at the end. It was fucked up.” 

“Yeah.” The word is like a sigh. Eliot doesn’t need any more than that, because he can tell Quentin knows. He knows that the words weren’t meant for him. Eliot took his own dream and made it into something ugly and poisonous. 

“You know,” Quentin says, staring out over the balcony. There’s not really a view, except of the next building across the street. Bambi could afford Madison Avenue but not a view. “When my dad was sick, Josh used to make me food every week to take to him. He would show up at my place with just, like, a stack of tupperware. And he always said it was leftovers but I know it was so I didn’t have to worry if my dad was eating when I couldn’t be there.” 

“I think I knew that.” 

“And Margo used to call me, every Sunday, and talk about Fillory and my book and give me advice for dealing with the publishers. It’s your busy day for weddings so she probably wanted to be talking to you instead but it was also the day my dad usually did his chemo and she knew I didn’t want to be alone but didn’t know how to ask.” 

“Oh.” 

Quentin breathes out, long and slow. “I guess I’m just saying they were my friends, too. And I really, _really_ miss them both.”

“Yeah.” Eliot rests his hands on the railing. “I think I kind of got wrapped up in my own shit and forgot that. I’m sorry.” 

“I know—I think the whole world knows what Margo is to you, El. You’re fucked up and I’d be a lot more worried if you weren’t. Just, what you said...” 

Eliot covers Quentin’s hand on the rail. “Tell me.”

“We can’t talk about her like that,” Quentin says, gaze distant. “About Mimi. Like she’s not a person, or something. Like she’s making it worse.”

That’s not what he expected, but Eliot strokes his thumb over Quentin’s knuckles. “Okay. We won’t.” 

“Kids know when you’re fighting about them.” For a minute Quentin is somewhere else. “Even when they’re little, they know.” 

“Q, hey.” Eliot doesn’t want Quentin far away, mentally or otherwise. Maybe that’s a little hypocritical but sue him. He pulls Quentin in the scant few inches between them and into his arms. 

“I hear you,” he says, stroking Quentin’s back. “I hear you. There’s nothing that matters more to me than Mimi. And you. I’ll do better.” 

“I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have pushed. It’s been a hard week.” 

“Every week is going to be hard, and I need the push.” Eliot buries his nose in Quentin’s hair. They’re friends. They can have this. “I know I’m being irrational. We’re living in a—god, it’s like a museum, and it hurts so much but Margo isn’t coming back to live here.” 

Saying the words out loud makes his chest seize, but Eliot stays upright somehow. Mostly it’s thanks to Quentin holding him up. 

“It really fucking sucks, doesn’t it?” 

“Yeah, it does.” Eliot kisses the top of Quentin’s head. “And also, now that I’ve slept in an actual bed I’ve realized how bad my back hurts lately.” 

Quentin sputters a laugh, his forehead pressed to Eliot’s collarbone. “I tried to tell you.”

Eliot squeezes Quentin once, and lets him go. Quentin ducks his head a little as he turns back toward the railing, tucking the flippy bit of his hair behind his ear. Shy again. 

“If…” Eliot begins, twisting the opal ring on his left middle finger. It’s a nervous habit Bambi used to scold him for. Quentin looks up, hopeful. 

“If I was ready for some baby steps,” he starts again. “Maybe some room in the closets. Did you have ideas about how to start that?” 

“Yeah.” Quentin smiles, just a little. “Yeah I do. Can we, uh, work on that ziti first? I was literally asleep until like a half hour ago and I’m starving.” 

Eliot opens the sliding door. “We can definitely do that.” 

“So I found this charity,” Quentin explains ten minutes later, showing Eliot the website on his phone. He just cleaned a plate Eliot put in front of him, and even though he didn’t do the cooking it feels good to see Quentin full and satisfied. He’s taking care of him. He’d forgotten that that’s his job now, regardless of what beds they do or don’t share. 

“It’s for underprivileged women, to help them get professional clothes for job interviews and stuff. And Margo…I mean, she had so many suits. She barely wore them all.“

“Yeah,” Eliot agrees. “Some are almost brand new. I think she’d like that.” 

“But clothes mattered to her, and I know they matter to you,” Quentin continues. “So I thought maybe you could choose a few really special things. To keep. And then someday Mimi could have them.”

At first, something in Eliot coils tight and jealous. _But what do_ I _get to keep_ , it demands, but Eliot squashes it. Instead he makes Quentin eat a second helping of ziti and loads the dishwasher. 

“Can we…” Eliot fumbles a little with the dishwasher tab. “Can we do it right now? Pick out the clothes, I mean. I think I need to do it right now, or I’ll change my mind.” 

Quentin takes the tab out of his hands and peels off the wrapper, tucking it in the slot and closing the dishwasher. He hits start, and then start again because otherwise it’ll just hover on standby all night. Eliot always forgets, but Quentin never does. Then he looks up at Eliot and takes his hand.

“Yeah. Let’s do it.” 

The first step into the master bedroom is like ripping off a bandaid. Eliot squeezes Quentin’s hand tight as he takes in the cream and charcoal. Margo loved a dark statement wall. It’s not... _haunted_ , though, the way Eliot expected it to be. It’s mostly just empty, the bed sloppily made and a glass of water still on the bedside table that’s evaporated down to nothing. 

Bambi isn’t here. 

“Okay?” Quentin asks. Eliot nods, throat a little tight from the dust more than anything. 

The closet is harder. It’s as close to a walk-in as you get in the city, and every occupied hanger is a stark reminder of absence. 

“I think I forgot how tiny she was.” Eliot blinks, and Quentin offers him a crooked grin as he plucks one of Margo’s many suits off the rack and holds it up to himself. Even accounting for three inch heels the collar barely his chest. “She was always larger than life to me.” 

Eliot swallows and nods. He’s not quite ready to laugh about her yet. Hesitantly, he reaches out to stroke his fingers down the long line of linen, wool, and silk. Bambi didn’t bargain shop. Each piece was an investment, and she was on a first name basis with her drycleaner. 

“What do you think?” Quentin leans against the doorway, giving Eliot some space. For a moment the choice is dizzying. Every piece of Margo that he can hold onto is precious. He’s supposed to choose what scraps of his best friend are worth keeping? Every blazer, every kaftan, every pair of earrings is a terrifying loss. Eliot realizes he’s broken out in a cold sweat.

“Hey, hey. Breathe, El—we don’t have to do this tonight. We can—” 

“No,” he says. He doesn’t want to live like this anymore. “I can do it.” 

He takes a deep breath, and the clothes in front of him settle from an impossible blur into reality again. When he thinks— _really_ thinks—he knows what he needs, and what he wants Mimi to see when she thinks of her mom someday. Eliot pulls out Margo’s white power suit. Her magenta fur coat. The oil spill black sequined mini dress she was wearing the night they met. Chandelier earrings and her best loved stilettos.

His Bambi, in two and a half outfits. He lays his choices out on the end of the bed for him and Quentin to survey. 

“Yeah,” Quentin breathes. “Wow. That’s her.”

Then Q goes to the very back of the closet, and emerges with Josh’s most garish Hawaiian shirt. 

“I saved this,” he says. “It seems right, to keep them together. And who knows? Mimi might turn out butch.” 

Eliot sputters a laugh. 

“Bambi would love that,” he says, completely unironically. He pets over the softness of Margo’s fur coat like it’s a living thing. He spent a lot of time in college high as fuck, loving on Margo and petting all her soft, lovely clothes. Eventually he started dressing soft and lovely himself just so she could have her turn. Becoming Eliot Waugh was the greatest project of his life, and it was intertwined with Margo from the very start. 

Quentin presses his hand to the small of Eliot’s back, and for the first time since the accident he really feels it. 

“Let’s put these somewhere safe,” Q suggests. “We can text Penny and see if he and Kady can loan us their car tomorrow to do a donation trip.” 

Eliot exhales, and wraps his arm around Quentin’s shoulders. “That sounds like a plan.”

That’s their new plan, and they stick to it. They keep the precious and the useful and let the rest go, one little project at a time. Eliot can’t pretend it’s easy or fun, to see pieces of Margo disappear. (Going through Josh’s massive collection of cookbooks is surprisingly emotional. Eliot spent a lot of time condescending to the guy who made Bambi a home and never objected to Eliot being a part of it. That’s a lot to reckon with over a pile of Alton Brown books.) but when Eliot is done wringing his hands over throwing out Margo’s bathroom shelf full of half used skin care products and all the other unimportant detritus, what’s left is stronger. Sharper. A more concentrated piece of his Bambi for him to hold onto. 

Eliot takes on some of these projects alone, in the weeks after he and Quentin’s come to Jesus conversation. There’s also a few days when projects have to wait so that Eliot can make sure Quentin is fed and takes his meds and shuffles out to the balcony to get some sun. 

That’s okay too. They were overdue anyway, and Eliot knows how to help with a depressive episode now that he’s got his head partially out of his ass. After about a week of bed and listless sleep and only managing half a smile for Mimi, Quentin joins Eliot in the living room in time to see him taking all the photographs down from the walls. 

“You’ve been busy.” 

Eliot jumps, but doesn’t drop Margo and Josh’s wedding photo. Quentin looks tired, and he’s in his rattiest hoodie. But he’s here, and that’s all Eliot can ask. 

“I was thinking of a collage on that wall,” Eliot says, pointing to a blank space next to the sliding glass door. “Just for Josh and Margo, and then a couple of all four of us with Mimi. Then I got some photo albums for the rest. I thought someday that would be a project, but it’ll keep all the prints safe for now.” 

Quentin nods, coming to stand beside Eliot to look at the frame in his hands. Eliot remembers Bambi’s wedding like it was yesterday. He’d made sure every detail was perfect, and spent all his secret moments grieving the end of an era. He hadn’t realized how good he had it. 

Eliot sighs, and lets the moment of self-flagellation go. 

“Do you want to give me a hand?” Eliot asks Quentin. “I’ve got a laser level, but it’s probably a two man job.”

“Yeah.” Quentin smiles for him, and Eliot knows that it’s hard work. He’s grateful. “I’d love to.” 

By dinner they have the story of Josh and Margo in a half dozen frames on the wall. Their happiest moments, their friends, their personality. At the center is one of the smallest prints and the most precious. Josh, Eliot, and Quentin, all gathered around a hospital bed and looking down at Margo holding newborn Mimi in absolute astonishment. 

“It’s perfect,” Quentin declares. Eliot has to agree. 

“What next?” 

They start working on furniture, switching out one thing at a time as the house starts to look like something of _theirs_. The first big change is Eliot’s bed, brought in on a Saturday with Penny’s help from his old apartment. It’s a king, big enough to accommodate Eliot’s sprawling limbs, with it’s simple, masculine wrought iron frame. It goes into the master bedroom, and the chic white platform bed that Margo and Josh shared goes to Habitat for Humanity. 

It takes Eliot a week to sleep in it, but Quentin helps. They sit on the bed together and play with Mimi. Eliot catches up on paperwork for Fen, spreading out vendor contracts and seating charts on his worn in and familiar violet duvet. One night Mimi sleeps on Eliot’s chest while he and Quentin eat dinner sitting up against the headboard. They watch a British design competition on Quentin’s laptop and critique the contestant’s overuse of patterned wallpaper. 

Eliot wakes up to sunlight streaming through the narrow windows the next morning and the realization that it’s just a room. It’s a room with his bed in it, where he can sleep and have time to himself. 

It’s just a room.

Things are a little easier after that. 


	5. Chapter 5

Time passes like a leaky faucet, a couple of drips here and there and then a flood and then it’s been five months since they lost Josh and Bambi. Mimi can sit up on her own now, and bounce on her chubby legs if Eliot helps her hold the edge of a chair. Quentin has made himself a little writing nook in his room and spends a few hours a day chipping away at his new book. Supposedly it’s going well, but Eliot and Mimi are there to supply distractions on the days that it’s not. 

Eliot is taking on more at work again too. He’s become the paperwork mule, handling contracts, calendars, and itineraries for most of their projects through a very involved Google office setup. It turns out brides love Fen almost as much as they loved Eliot, so he’s taking on everything he can to make sure she can put her energy toward the face-to-face side of the business. And he’s back in charge of settling accounts, so he knows business is good. 

Between their jobs and the lingering late night crying jags there’s just the day to day menial tasks that come with living together.

Like laundry.

Eliot has the patience to sort out all the darks from the lights, but it’s Quentin who never gives up looking for the matching socks, so they fold together on the living room floor while Mimi has her tummy time on the rug. She’s demonstrating casual elegance in a pink onesie with _make way for ducklings!_ embroidered across the chest and doing a very good job of providing laundry day entertainment.

She rolls onto her back—her favorite trick—and grasps at her toes with a gummy grin. She’s such a happy baby, full of personality. She’s due to start crawling any day, and they’ve been frantically baby proofing all the outlets and sharp corners in anticipation. 

“Look at you.” Having paired off the last of the socks Quentin stretches out on the rug with Mimi. “Are you playing today? What are we playing?" He covers his face with his hands. "How about….peekaboo!” 

Quentin pulls his hands away from his face and Mimi huffs a laugh, clapping her hands. She has a very ladylike giggle, and a piercing happy scream, but by far Eliot’s favorite of Mimi’s laughs is her funny little chuckle. It’s like the gravelly snicker of Dick Dastardly’s canine henchman. She only does it when they’re playing peekaboo, like she’s entertained by them making fools of themselves in order to help her develop object permanence. Quentin hides his face again, and Mimi rolls herself up to a sit so she can bat at his hands until he pulls them away.

“Peekaboo!” 

More giggles. This could go on for hours, and Eliot wouldn’t have a single complaint. He works his way through the last of the shirts while Quentin and Mimi play, something warm and wiggly in his belly. Q is really such a natural with kids. 

“Let’s try this,” Quentin says, taking Mimi’s hands in his large ones to help her cover her own face. Then he gives a theatrical gasp. 

“Oh no! Where did Mimi go?” 

Mimi kicks her teeny feet, thrilled with this new twist on her favorite pastime. She’s so fucking cute. 

“Where’s Mimi?” Eliot asks, playing along while Mimi giggles.”Where did she go?”

Language is still a ways down the line, but Mimi is smart as a whip and she definitely understands the sound of a question and her own name. As is probably the case with all infants, she’s her own favorite subject. Quentin pops Mimi’s hands away from her face and they both cheer. 

“There she is!” 

That earns them the happy scream, and Eliot tries not to wince as he stands up with the laundry basket on his hip bound for the bedroom. 

“Uh, oh, Q. I think you’ve created a peekaboo monster.” 

Quentin is still laughing, his eyes all squinty at the corners as Mimi covers her face with her hands again, all on her own this time. He’s wonderful. 

“I think I’ll manage. Are you still good for the Whole Foods run?” 

“You bet. I’m just gonna put this away then I’ll go.” 

Eliot has been wearing a lot of drawer clothes lately. The thought rubs him funny while he’s tucking away socks and underwear and polo shirts in his faux oak Ikea dresser. He’s filled Margo’s closet—his, _his_ closet—with all of his suits and vests and his color coded tie rack, but he still can’t summon the passion he once felt for putting together an _ensemble_. 

He tucks that thought away for another day. 

“I added dryer sheets to the grocery list,” Eliot calls from the bedroom. “Did we forget anything else?” 

“Applesauce.” 

“Got it.”

Quentin is fishing through the cupboard with Mimi on his hip when Eliot emerges, a bottle of formula warming in a pan of water on the stove. Lunchtime. She reaches out for Eliot when she sees him, working those core muscles in the fearless way only infants can.

“Whoa, there,” Quentin says, setting a jar of mashed peas on the counter and readjusting his grip. “I know Eliot’s our favorite, but let’s not throw ourselves _all_ the way across the kitchen.” 

There aren’t many people left in this world who would call Eliot their _favorite_.

“Be good,” Eliot says, kissing Mimi’s grasping fingers. “I’ll bring home the applesauce.” 

“Bah,” Mimi declares. 

“That’s right, sweetheart.” 

“We could use milk too,” Quentin says, looking up from Mimi with the most serene smile on his face. 

“I’ll handle it,” Eliot promises. And then he— 

—he tips Quentin up by the chin—

—he tips him up by the chin and kisses him, too.

“Be right back.” 

Eliot has the door open before he even realizes what’s just happened. He turns back. Quentin is wide eyed. 

“Uh, that was—” 

“Good,” Quentin says. Then, maybe he catches the look on Eliot’s face, because he rushes after with— “But no big deal. Um, I mean, if it wasn’t supposed to—”

“Right.”

Eliot turns away. He plucks their reusable grocery tote from its hook on the wall and pulls the door quietly closed behind him before this turns into anything resembling a conversation.

He makes it to Whole Foods. He gets everything on the list. He ignores the rapid fire buzz of Quentin’s text messages in his pocket, no doubt full of anxious reassurance. 

Eliot is swiping avocados one at a time through the self-checkout kiosk when he realizes how badly he wants a drink, and that he saw a bar on the corner just across the street. His feet carry him there in a heartbeat. Bright daylight streams through dingy windows as Eliot sets his reusable shopping bag under the bar. 

“Double vodka. Well is fine.”

The vodka is cheap, and the first shot makes him cough. The second one goes down like water. He’s not even finished before he taps the bar for another.

“I almost forgot her,” he tells the bartender between his third and fourth glass. “I was happy all morning and almost let myself forget.” 

The bartender pauses over the fourth pour, but this is Manhattan, he’s heard weirder, and Eliot already gave him his credit card. He gives him the double, this time with soda, and a glass of water that Eliot doesn’t touch. 

His tolerance isn’t what it was, and things start to go a little woozy. At some point the bartender won’t serve him, and at some point he gives up his phone. 

And then Quentin is there. Quentin, looking really _really_ sad, with a baby carrier. An occupied baby carrier.

Eliot tries to stand and promptly falls right on his ass. He looks up at Quentin, eyes glazed over and his brow furrowed.

“I think I let the milk spoil,” he slurs, and bursts into tears. Quentin sighs, and Eliot hears him murmur an apology to the bartender as he closes out Eliot’s tab. 

“Come on, El. Let’s get you home.” 

Eliot leans heavy on Quentin’s arm as he stumbles to his feet, trying and failing to ignore Mimi’s curious babble in this seedy dive.

“She shouldn’t—” Eliot hiccups, of all the undignified things. “—shouldn’t see me like this, Q. Don’t want her to grow up with a drunk for a—” 

“Shh, come on. She’s not even eight months old. She won’t remember.” 

“Why’d you bring her?” 

“Because I couldn’t get a hold of Penny and Kady and Julia are still at work. Now come on, get up.” 

“Still at…” Eliot’s vision swoops and settles just enough to read the time in the corner of the news program playing on the monitor above the bar. 

It’s not even five PM. 

“M’sorry,” he manages, tears leaking down his cheeks again. “Q, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to. I swear I didn’t—”

“I know.” Quentin hands Eliot his bag of groceries. “The Uber is double parked out front. Let’s go.”

They go home, and Eliot’s last thought before he passes out in his— _Margo’s—_ room is that it was a good morning. 

Is he not even allowed to have a good morning? Is this going to be the rest of his life? 

He wakes up at eleven PM brutally hungover. He pukes his guts up in the bathroom, and when he emerges twenty minutes and a cold shower later Quentin is sitting on the edge of his bed. He offers Eliot a big glass of water and a bottle of ibuprofen and lets Eliot crawl pathetically back under the covers before he speaks. 

“I think,” he says, voice soft, “That you should consider trying counseling, El. For real this time.” 

Eliot nods, too miserable to even put up a token argument. 

“Okay.” 

Quentin nods, and rests his hand briefly over Eliot’s ankle where it’s hidden by the duvet. Eliot can just feel the press of his thumb sweeping over the curve of bone, and it kind of makes him want to start crying again. 

It’s almost a relief when Quentin leaves him alone to sleep it off. 


	6. Chapter 6

“Eliot, why don’t you tell me why you’re here.” 

_Dr. Rupert Sebastian Chatwin._ God, his accent is so annoying. Like _Robin Hood: Men in Tights_ Carey Elwes British. 

“Don’t you have some kind of intake form?” Eliot asks, rubbing his sweaty palms against his chinos which he now realizes have not been ironed. He can feel his overgrown hair rubbing against his collar at the back of his neck, lank with product because he’s been washing it less than he should lately. It’s like every piece of minimalist decor in this office is designed to make it obvious just how much Eliot has let himself go. “I seem to recall writing this all down.” 

“Seb” raises one eyebrow. _Nice try, sport_ , seems to be the message. It goes with his barber fresh hair and perfectly groomed goatee. Ugh.

“I’d like to hear it from you,” he says, setting aside his notepad and knitting his fingers in his lap. All wonderful and prim. Active listening, and all that. 

So Eliot talks. Slowly, at first, because it’s none of “Seb’s” business, then faster when Eliot realizes he’s paying for this and Quentin and Mimi are counting on him to get a little less fucked up than he apparently is. In retrospect, that framing probably isn’t the key to getting a good grade at therapy, but whatever. Seb isn’t that bad. He doesn’t act sad, or pretend he knows how Eliot is feeling, or make him do any worksheets. He doesn’t let Eliot deflect questions with jokes. He’s also very obviously gay, but in a different way than Eliot is very obviously gay, which Eliot can appreciate. He can’t imagine having any version of this conversation with a heterosexual. 

“You’re still grieving,” Seb tells him at the close of their first hour. “Six months is nothing when you’ve lost the most important person in your life, whether it was a parent, a partner, or a friend.” 

“Six months is Mimi’s whole life,” Eliot points out. “I don’t have that kind of time. She needs me now. _Quentin_ needs me now.”

“And they both have you,” Seb continues. “Your grief included. It’s not like drinking. You can’t quit cold turkey.” 

Eliot sighs. “That hasn’t been going so well for me either.” 

“So you’ve said. But this—” Seb takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes. “Eliot, I can tell you from experience that the pain of losing a loved one never goes away. It’s a part of us. How large a part, and what impact it has on the people in your life, that is a matter of time and your choices.”

“So I’m just going to be a borderline alcoholic sad sack forever,” Eliot says dryly. “Great, thanks. Can’t wait to tell my infant ward.” 

“Would you rather forget Margo, and be free of your negative feelings?” 

The emotional whiplash tightens Eliot's throat as Seb skips past his sardonic facade with ease. He notices, apropos of nothing, that Seb doesn’t have any dark circles under his eyes. He’s either got a very good concealer or he actually has his shit together.

“I would never want that.” 

“Good. That’s not something I would expect,” Seb replies. “What I would like for you is to be able to remember your friend, and share your memories of her with her daughter without _only_ remembering the trauma of her death. That, I think, is a realistic goal for the long term. Now, let’s talk about some goals for the _short_ term.” 

* * *

Quentin comes home from an exhausting meeting with his editor expecting a quiet house. Maybe a tense one. Eliot went to therapy today, and it wasn’t strictly voluntary so Quentin has been trying to prepare himself for any number of reactions. Eliot needs a different kind of support than Quentin can offer alone. It might take time to find the right support. Quentin has his own support system well in place, so he’s ready to weather another rough patch. 

Instead, he opens the door to the sounds of Ke$ha bouncing from the speakers in the kitchen, occasionally punctuated by Mimi’s exclamations, and what sounds like the rhythmic banging of a sippy cup against a high chair tray. 

“Yess, Mimi, sing it!” He hears Eliot exclaim with an exaggerated camp sparkle. “I knew you’d have taste, darling. Just wait till we get you on the club circuit.”

Already smiling, Quentin drops his laptop bag by the door to investigate. He finds Eliot holding court with Mimi, his hips swaying to the beat of an early 2000s playlist while he chiffonades a cutting board full of fresh escarole. Quentin’s heart nearly stops at the sight.

Eliot is... _dressed_. Eliot on a desert island would never wear less than a collared shirt but this isn’t clothes. It’s a _look_. His shirt is crisp, violet paisley with the sleeves rolled up as he works. His vest is fawn brown leather and gray silk set off by a delicate herringbone trouser. It all matches the shiny two tone Oxfords Quentin sees when he turns back to the shoe tray by the door. 

“If you take a picture it’ll last longer.” Quentin jumps, but Eliot just flicks his eyebrows in that way of his. Like he’s laughing but actually pleased he caught you staring. “How was your meeting?” 

“Fine. You look…” _Like yourself_. “Good. Really good, El. Is your—did you get your hair cut?” 

Eliot hums. “Mimi was a hit at the salon.” He flicks his hand over the back of his neck where his hair is now trimmed close and clean. It shows off the length on top that still falls in thick dark curls that make Quentin weak in the knees. 

“It feels like a weight off.” Eliot strokes his knuckles against his jaw absently, where uneven growth has been groomed into a careful but thick shadow that makes him look older and a little roguish. “I thought I might lean into the beard for a while though. Do you mind?” 

“Uh, no?” Quentin’s cheeks are warm. He does _not_ mind at all. “Did your appointment go okay, then?” 

Eliot looks great, but Quentin would rather have him unshowered and getting help than picture perfect and falling apart when he has his back turned. 

“Honestly?” Eliot laughed. “It sucked balls. And it’s going to continue to suck balls. Because I’m going to keep going.” 

“Yeah, um, I know that feeling.” Eliot’s grin slants, and it makes Quentin’s heart squeeze tight. 

“I know you do.” Quentin freezes when Eliot puts down the chef’s knife to tug Quentin into a hug. Affection is still slim enough between them that every touch feels like an electric shock. A second too late, Quentin gets his arms working and hugs back. Eliot is too thin under his waistcoat, but it’s perfect. They still fit together perfectly. 

“I’m probably going to be a real asshole about it sometimes, Q,” Eliot confides, pressing his lips to the side of Quentin’s head. “But right now: thanks for pushing.” 

“We can take turns. Being the post-therapy asshole, I mean.” 

Eliot laughs again. “It’s a deal. Now, it’s your job to get the little miss in an evening appropriate high chair look. Tonight we’re eating at the table like civilized people.” 

* * *

“I’m starting to feel...happy,” Eliot admits. It’s taken him nearly a month to get here. They’ve already hashed out his religious upbringing and his undergrad cocaine habit but god forbid he express something as simple as his own human emotions. “Sometimes. And I shouldn’t be.” 

“Why do you think that is?” Seb asks. “That you shouldn’t feel happy.” 

“Because Margo is still dead,” Eliot says. “And Quentin wants me to get better but if Margo is dead...I think I should be, too.” 

There’s a long pause.

“You know. Figuratively,” Eliot tacks on belatedly. Seb isn’t taking notes. Eliot can see the shift from friendly active listener to emergency health services worker.

“Eliot, have you had any recent thoughts of suicide?” 

“No.” It’s the truth. Eliot surprised even at himself, but it is. 

“Have you thought of harming yourself, or anyone else?” 

“No, no, I swear,” Eliot says. “I know what I just said, what it sounds like. But aside from like, slow destruction of my liver, I’m not trying to hurt myself.” 

Eliot didn’t really understand the ease with which some people slipped into that headspace; the way someone like Quentin’s brain could betray him into thinking he had nothing to live for. Eliot had always remained stubbornly and sometimes agonizingly alive no matter what life threw at him. The biggest fuck you he’d ever been able to offer to his bullshit upbringing was to be as alive and overtly queer as possible, and it hadn’t led him astray so far. He shares as much with Seb, and gets a rueful smile. 

“I really do want to be alive,” Eliot continues. “I want it more than anything. I just don’t know how when every good thing that happens to me feels like I’m erasing Margo from my life.” 

Seb nods.

“Do you think it’s possible that your past strategies for survival might be part of why you feel guilty about trying to move on from Margo’s death?” he asks. 

Eliot furrows his brow. “I don’t know what you mean.” 

Seb sits up in his chair. “Your coping mechanism for dealing with hardship has been to persevere as an act of defiance, I’m hearing you say.” 

“Being awesome out of spite, is what Margo called it when we were in college,” Eliot agrees. 

“It’s not uncommon, especially for those who have survived adversity,” Seb explains. “But what do you do, now that the source of your hardship isn’t say, your homophobic childhood?” 

Eliot is putting the pieces together, and he doesn’t like the picture he sees forming. 

“I can’t live ‘in spite’ of Bambi,” he says, throat tight. “And I definitely can’t raise her baby that way. But it’s the only way I know how to handle anything bad that happens to me, so I’m stuck.” 

“I think that might be getting to the heart of it.” 

* * *

The Uber ride to Brooklyn isn’t as bad as Eliot remembers. Maybe he just hasn’t gotten out of the house enough lately. He’s also never taken an Uber with a baby in tow, and Mimi likes to keep things interesting. She’s dressed to the nines in a sunflower patterned dress and a matching hairclip. Eliot thought her white mary-janes would be the best compliment but Quentin had taken a rare stand and pulled out her black baby Converse and Eliot has to admit it’s a look and a half. 

“Gosh, you are stylish, baby girl,” he says, letting her hold his index finger while Quentin keeps her occupied with her favorite chilled teething ring. Mimi’s smiles aren’t all gums anymore. One or two pearly baby teeth have made their appearance after a lot of hard work and creative soothing. Mimi babbles and Quentin grins at him. It’s worth being accordion folded into the back of a Ford Focus with another grown man and a baby carrier just for that. 

Eliot’s busy looking at Quentin and doesn’t realize Mimi has a hold of his tie until it’s halfway to her mouth. 

“Whoops, hang on sweetheart, that’s silk.” 

Mimi makes a sour face as Eliot tugs it from her grip and tucks it back in the vee of his sweater, and Quentin bursts out laughing. 

“Oh my god, I’m sorry,” he says wiping a tear from his eye. “Sorry, she just—wow, she looked so much like Margo just then.” 

Eliot can feel his smile falter and restart like a faulty pick up ignition. 

“Of course,” he says, distracting Mimi’s grasping fingers with her teething ring. “Big Bambi eyes. Just like her mama.” 

“And a laser glare to go with.”

“Naturally.”

Eliot winks, just to show Quentin everything’s okay, and lets himself feel the ache. 

They make the rest of the journey unscathed, and then they’re standing outside the modest, yellow brick multi-family home where Josh grew up. 

“First floor, Ruth said, right?” Quentin double checks, looking at the choice between two buttons. 

“Unless she moved since you asked me five minutes ago.” 

“Are we ready?” Quentin’s nerves are starting to show through, and Eliot would be lying if he said he wasn’t feeling a few himself. Still, there was nothing more important in the world to Josh than family. This is the first step in honoring that.

Eliot puts his arm around Quentin’s shoulder and gives him a quick squeeze. 

“We can do hard things,” he says. Quentin offers him a tentative smile, then reaches out to press the doorbell. 

* * *

“So it sounds like dinner went well,” Seb observes later that week. 

“Yeah,” Eliot agrees. “There were some rough patches, for Ruth especially, but it was good. Mimi was a star, of course.” 

“I’m sure. How did it feel, spending time with Josh’s family?”

“It was loud.” Eliot laughs, remembering all four of Josh’s sisters and their kids clamoring over the baby. “Good loud. Me and Q aren’t used to that. We didn’t grow up in that kind of house.” 

“Have you talked much about it?” Seb asks. “The ways you grew up, how the dinner was different than what you’ve experienced?”

“We talked that night, actually.” Eliot crosses his legs, resting his left hand on his ankle. “Mimi was asleep at seven, and it was just the two of us at the kitchen table for the first time in a while. We ate the leftovers Ruth piled on us and...dug it all up, I guess.” 

“How did it go?”

“It sucked, to be totally honest.” Eliot laughs. “It was—I mean we both cried, because that’s all I do nowadays, and Q has always been a bleeding heart. But we definitely figured some things out.” 

“Such as?” 

Eliot bites his bottom lip, thinking over the conversation. “We’re both bending over backwards to make sure Mimi never sees us experiencing negative emotions but for totally different reasons, and it’s kind of fucking us up.” 

“And what are you calling ‘negative’ emotions?” 

“Us arguing, either of us being angry or frustrated.” Eliot thinks again. “For Q I think it’s anything that could make it seem like Mimi is making our lives difficult, or like she’s an inconvenience. That’s leftover shit from his parent’s divorce, he told me.”

Seb nods, steepling his fingers. 

“What about for you? What are you trying to shelter Mimi from?” 

Eliot purses his lips. He did the hard part of this already with Q. He can rehash it with the guy who gets paid to deal with his baggage. 

“I don’t want her to be afraid of me,” he says. “I’m—” he laughs “—I’m a gay wedding planner, you know? On paper, I’m probably the polar opposite of my father, but to Mimi it’s all semantic. I’m bigger than her, I’m supposed to take care of her, and if I raise my voice I could be just as scary to her as my dad was to me.” 

Seb hums. “Would you say you feel a lot of anger?” 

Eliot shakes his head. “Some, but it’s existential, you know? I’m mad Margo died. I’m mad I got pushed into this apartment with Quentin before we were ready. I’m mad Mimi doesn’t get to know her parents.” Eliot swallows. “It all comes back to the same old ennui, and I don’t want Mimi to see that either.”

“So you don’t want Mimi to see that you’re..sad.” Seb clarifies. “Not necessarily angry.”

“I guess,” Eliot says with a shrug. “I love Mimi. Most of the time being able to take care of her is the only thing that keeps me from totally breaking down. But at the same time I shouldn’t have her. She should be with her parents, and she can’t be, and that hurts. She should have her mother and I should have my best friend. I don’t want her to see me feeling that and think it’s because I don’t love her.” 

Eliot drags his hands through his hair. He always ends up back on the train looking like a mad scientist, all his careful morning efforts nothing in the face of getting through this hour intact. It’s a bad habit. 

“Is Mimi allowed to be sad in front of _you_?” Seb asks, after a few moments pause. 

“I mean...she’s ten months old.” 

Seb taps his pencil on his notepad. “Let’s play hypothetical. When Mimi is ten _years_ old, will she be allowed to display these ‘negative emotions’?” 

“Of course,” Eliot says. “I mean, I want her to be happy, but kids cry sometimes.” 

“Alright,” Seb continues with his usual smug air of going in for the kill. “How will she know that it’s alright to show sadness, anger, and what have you, if she’s never seen them experienced by you or your partner?” 

Eliot sighs. “Yeah, we know,” he says. “We got to this, Q and me. It’s the other side of the coin, isn’t it?” 

“Tell me what you mean.” 

“I mean my mom would have to keep me home from school because my dad gave me a black eye and she would still pretend that nothing was wrong. Like it was a treat, a special day for me and her to spend together and not keeping me out of sight so CPS didn’t get called,” Eliot says, standing up and pacing. “Quentin would hide under his bed while his parents fought all night, and the next day his dad would buy him books and take him out for lunch like it made everything okay again.”

“So…” Seb prompts. Eliot twists his ring and paces for a few more seconds.

“So everything’s not okay,” he says eventually. “And when something’s not okay we’ve got to let it live beside the things that are. Otherwise our whole life is going to be dinner theater. We’re going to have to live with _nuance.”_

“Nicely put.” 

“Why, thank you.” Eliot offers Seb a theatrical bow. “Do I get a gold star this week?”

Seb laughs. It’s barely a chuckle, more of a huffed breath and flick of his eyebrows, but it’s the first time he’s ever laughed at one of Eliot’s lines. Eliot considers that perhaps this is because he’s actually said something funny instead of glibly tragic. 

Progress _._


	7. Chapter 7

Mimi is just about a year old. They’re starting to talk about a birthday party, though they’ll probably keep it to a couple of the friends and the Hobermans. Still, it’s nice to make plans without feeling like he’s ripping out his own spleen to be cheerful. Eliot’s been trying to make some new memories lately, and it seems like an opportunity. 

He’s getting a load of laundry together and thinking about cake flavors when he hears Quentin laugh in the kitchen. He swings by the door with a basket full of whites on his hip. Mimi’s in her highchair and Quentin’s sitting at the table with his laptop, nominally editing for his next deadline. 

“Q, what do you think about carrot cake? Do you think Rachel’s kids will—” 

He’s interrupted by Quentin’s raised eyebrows.

“Excuse you. Mimi was giving me her advice on the new chapter.” Quentin’s eyes are sparkling, and sure enough when Eliot falls silent Mimi continues with her thought, her baby babble taking on something like the cadence of conversation as she helps herself to some of the loose cheerios on her tray. 

“Yes, I see— oh thank you, that’s very kind.” Quentin graciously accepts a cheerio that Mimi offers him. “Tell me more, ma’am, you clearly have strong opinions.” 

Mimi giggles, wildly entertained by this very adult conversation. Eliot is deeply charmed. 

“How long has she been doing that?” 

Quentin grins. “Just now, as far as I know. She must be listening to you on the phone with Fen because whatever she’s saying she clearly thinks she’s in charge.” 

Eliot laughs at Mimi’s domineering personality already blossoming as much as Quentin’s serious engagement with an infant in a high chair. That laugh must not be terribly familiar to her, because Mimi jumps and looks over her shoulder before she reaches for him with grabby hands. 

“Dada!”

Eliot almost drops the laundry basket. He sets it down carefully instead while Mimi whines. For him. And she called him— 

His voice is rough when he asks: “Did she just—” 

“I think it was pretty clear.” Quentin’s eyes are wide. “...are you okay?” 

Eliot’s dead best friends’ daughter just called him dad. He’s having some mixed feelings. But Mimi is still squirming in her high chair, whining for him in a way that’s going to lead to full blown crying in about one minute.

“Yeah,” he says cautiously. “I’m okay. Can you, uh—” 

“Yeah, I’ve got her.” 

Eliot lets Quentin work the tray off the high chair and heft Mimi out of her seat. He remembers when she was too small to even hold her head up, red and ugly and wailing in Margo’s arms in the hospital room. Now she wriggles and laughs at her own secret jokes and pokes Quentin in the chin as he delivers her into Eliot’s arms. Her hair is starting to curl around her ears, still baby fine but so much like her mother’s already. 

“Hi, sweet girl,” Eliot murmurs, kissing her chubby cheek. “Did you want to see me?” He grounds himself with her clean baby smell. His Mimi. His little girl. She needs this, and there’s nothing Eliot wouldn’t do for her. “Did you want to see Daddy?” 

Mimi squeals her delight and Quentin gasps, but when Eliot looks up his eyes are bright. 

“And who’s that?” Eliot asks, pointing at Quentin. “I’m Daddy. Who’s this?” 

“El, it’s okay if she doesn’t—“ 

“Dada.” Mimi announces, as if Quentin and Eliot are both being stupid on purpose. Eliot laughs again, and this time it’s wet. He doesn’t realize he’s reaching out until he has Quentin’s hand in his. 

“You hear that, Dad?” He’s definitely crying now. “I think we’ve been chosen.” 

Quentin squeezes his hand. “ _Eliot._ ”

“I know.” Eliot swallows. Bravado is easy, but bravery is hard. “I miss my Bambi, Q. I miss her _so_ much. This should be hers. But if it has to be this way—”

“Then Mimi should have as much as we can give her.” Quentin nods, brushing away his own tears. “Yeah. You know I’m all in. Especially this.” 

“Okay.” Maybe it should have been obvious that this was a bridge they would have to cross sooner than later, but it still feels like a revelation. Mimi is going to have parents. Two who brought her into the world and two who are going to bring her up and never let her forget how loved she is. 

“Okay,” Eliot says again, this time to Mimi. “You’re up to three dads and counting, missy. That must be some kind of record.” 

Mimi pats at the dampness on his cheeks with a soft coo. Their sweet girl is already so clever. 

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he promises. “I’m sad, but I’m happy too. I love you so much.” 

“Da.” 

“Yeah, honey,” he agrees, pain and joy knotted up in him in a way that will never be fully undone and it’s _okay_. “That’s me. That’s us. We’re yours."

Quentin puts his arms around him, and with Mimi safe between them Eliot cries. Because he can. Because he should. 

Because they’re going to be a family. 

“I know a place,” Eliot says when he’s got himself put back together. “It was me and Margo’s favorite brunch spot.” 

Quentin rubs Mimi’s back and waits for Eliot to finish his thought. 

“I thought we could see if Julia wants to meet us there for lunch, and we can talk about what this means. You know, legally.” Eliot tucks Quentin’s hair behind his ear. He’s thinking about a lot of the things Seb has said, and about not living for spite. About moving on without letting Margo get too far away. “It was a special place for us, and this seems like a special conversation. I’d like to share it with you guys there.” 

Quentin smiles. “I’d love that. I’ll text Jules.” 

* * *

Lunch is good. Lunch is hopeful. Lunch is...a little tedious once Julia pulls out her laptop. But mostly lunch is just...fun. They wear Mimi out with an afternoon around the city and come home to leftovers for dinner. Mimi falls asleep in her high chair and Quentin indulges in the slow process of getting her dressed and tucked safe in bed. He leaves her in her crib with a kiss, and the knowledge that Mimi is going to be his daughter someday.

Wow. 

“I think she’s out for the night.” Quentin announces when he emerges from the nursery. “It’s been a big day.”

Eliot smiles at him from the kitchen counter, his hair towel damp as he muddles something in a cocktail shaker. He’s shower fresh, only wearing sweatpants and a loose open shirt. Quentin’s mouth goes dry at the display of Eliot’s soft furred chest. He had a taste, once, and it wasn’t anywhere near enough. 

“What are you working on?”

“Mocktail recipes.” Sure enough, there’s no alcohol on the counter, just various garnishes and what looks like an extensive collection of cocktail bitters, which don’t count. Something in Quentin eases. “We have a pregnant bride in a wedding coming up next month. But I thought, given recent experience, having some non-alcoholic options might play well with a bigger base than I imagined.”

“Do you need any help?” 

“Just a taste tester.” 

Eliot has two highball glasses waiting on a tray, already full of ice. He pours out his concoction and tops both glasses off with a generous hit of soda, then burns a curl of lime peel to garnish. The result is sea glass green and smells like— 

“A gin and tonic,” Quentin guesses. Eliot smiles. 

“It’s the juniper bitters.” He picks up the small serving tray. “Come lounge with me, Quentin. Let’s pretend at hedonism for a while.” 

Then Eliot leads him not to the couch, but to the master bedroom. Quentin follows with a soft step. This room holds the worst memories, and some of their best ones, and Eliot’s spent nine months finding the balance. They sit on the bed, _Sixteen Candles_ style, and for a second it’s a little weird. Then Eliot rolls his eyes a little and slouches to the side, and everything is right again. He leans on one elbow to pass Quentin his drink and take up his own. 

Quentin exhales, the condensation on the glass cool and wet against his fingers. It’s just them. This is good. 

“Should we have a toast?”

Eliot hums, thoughtful, then raises his glass. 

“To the bittersweet,” he says, soft and quiet and just for Quentin. “And a really good day.” 

Quentin clinks their glasses together and curls his toes in the soft linen of Eliot’s comforter. “One of the best.” 

Quentin holds his drink under his nose for a second before he tries it, just to feel the crisp pop of the bubbles. Eliot put so much care into making drinks. It’s like—like an art form that Quentin was always eager to sample the fruits of. That’s part of why it was so scary to find Eliot on the floor of that bar, drunk on well vodka in a shirt with a creased collar. It had been, just the absolute antithesis of all the things Quentin loved most about him. 

But Quentin lets that fear go, here. They’re home and safe, and Quentin takes a sip and savors the product of Eliot’s time and care. He tastes lime, and mint, and a teasing hint of cool pine— 

“Oh my god, Eliot, this is so fucking good.” 

Once upon a time, Eliot would have accepted Quentin’s accolades as his rightful due with little more than a flick of his wrist and a _what, like it’s hard?_ But this is a different Eliot. He dips his chin a little, and it shows off the dark of his eyelashes. He’s blushing. His smile is soft and a little surprised. Like he expected Quentin to say it wasn’t good enough. 

“Tell me about the wedding these are for,” Quentin says, instead of grasping Eliot’s hand and promising him that _everything_ he does is good enough. More than. “A wedding must be a lot of stress for a pregnant bride.” 

“She’s been a dream,” Eliot says, shaking his head. “At least according to Fen. But her _mother-in-law_ , oh my god.” He laughs. “You would not _believe_ the emails I’m getting. Just the other day I had to deal with _six..._ ” 

There’s no alcohol in their drinks, but Quentin feels light and drunk sprawled out on Eliot’s bed just listening to him talk and gesture with his big lovely hands. They joke around like they haven’t in almost a year, swapping work stories and the little bits of Mimi that they miss taking turns going to the store or their various therapies. 

“She’s so close to walking,” Quentin says. “I can just tell.” 

He’s flat on his back, shamelessly enjoying Eliot’s feather down pillows, and Eliot’s head is in his lap, his long legs dangling off the edge of the bed. 

“I think she’s waiting for the right soundtrack,” Eliot confides, tapping his nose. His other hand is loosely tangled with Quentin’s. “I’ve been experimenting with my different house playlists. She’s surprisingly receptive to the Berlin club scene.” 

“That’s all fun and games now.” Quentin drains the last of the fizzy, fragrant soda. “But wait until she’s seventeen and running away to Scandinavia to start a discotech.”

Eliot laughs, and that accomplishes two remarkable things. First, it makes his eyes sparkle and go soft. Second, when his head rolls back to grin at Quentin it brushes his cheek against the strip of exposed belly where Quentin’s shirt has ridden up. 

“Seventeen is a ways away yet.” 

Quentin huffs a laugh, trying to ignore the way Eliot is nosing at the edge of his shirt a little. 

“I don’t think we’re going to have trouble filling the time.” 

Eliot, he—oh, he skims the hem of Quentin’s shirt up, easy as you please, and rests his head there again, skin to skin. The prickle of his beard is ticklish.

“I bet you’re right,” Eliot says. He kisses just above his navel. His hands fit around the contour of his ribcage, and Quentin can’t help his gasp. He tries not to move, and doesn’t try to touch back, afraid at any moment that Eliot is going to pull away again when Quentin wants so _badly_. But Eliot continues to nuzzle Quentin’s middle, his breath warm against his skin when he sighs out: 

“You’re going to be such a good dad.” 

Quentin’s breath comes out as a wounded squeak. Tears prick at his eyes. How long has he waited— _hoped_ —to hear those words from Eliot? Imagined them in a thousand different ways, even before the accident and Mimi and this apartment. It’s the stuff of his most pathetic daydreams, the idea that any partner would see him with all of his baggage and still think he’s worthy of being a parent. That he’s someone a person like Eliot could raise a child with. 

“You too,” he whispers back, trying and failing to keep his voice level. “You already are. You love her _so much,_ El. Watching you with her...it’s beautiful.” 

Eliot hides from the compliment in the softness below Quentin’s ribs. “Yeah,” he says after a moment, voice a little rough. “So I’ll be Pushover Dad. You’re going to be Good Dad. Teaching her how to read, healthy emotional discussions, staying hydrated. You know, important things.”

Quentin laughs, soft in the quiet room. 

“Maybe,” he says, “But you’re going to be best at all the real world stuff. Bake sales. Girl scouts. Talking to the moms at kindergarten pick up.” 

Eliot’s eyes are soft and warm when he looks up at Quentin. 

“I’m going to have to beat them off you with a stick,” he says, pressing a kiss over Quentin’s breastbone. “A hot dad with a cute kid. You’re going to break hearts.” 

“Well—” Quentin’s mouth goes a little dry, because they haven’t really talked. About this. But they’re talking about the future now, right? And if they’re going to raise a baby together, and live together, and Eliot’s going to lay with his head in Quentin’s lap and kiss over his ribs like he’s hungry for touch, then—

“I’ll have to explain to them,” he says slowly, staring up at the ceiling, “That I’m spoken for.” 

He feels when Eliot goes very still against him. Quentin swallows, and when he dares to look Eliot is staring at him, his eyes wide and wet. 

“I am,” Quentin says again, doubling down. “Spoken for. You know that, right?” 

They’re so close. Just a few inches, and Eliot is so tall that all he has to do is lean up and then he’s covering Quentin with his whole body, looking down on him with a tragic kind of awe. 

“You’ve been so good to me.” It’s barely a whisper, and the touch of Eliot’s hand to Quentin’s face is just as soft. “I’ve been...Q, it’s been so hard.” 

Quentin closes his eyes, feeling Eliot’s thumb stroke over his cheek. “I know.” 

“It’s been so hard,” Eliot continues. “But I’ve been trying. I’ve been _working_.” 

Quentin’s breath catches at the vague echo of his own words, a lifetime ago now. He opens his eyes in time to see the smile catch at the corner of Eliot’s lips, and the soft quirk of his eyebrows as he murmurs: 

“I wanted to be ready for us when the time came.” 

Quentin might cry. Instead he smiles, wet and tremulous. 

“ _Eliot.”_

It’s so slow, when Eliot dips down to kiss him. There’s nothing accidental about it. It’s a beautiful, firm press of their lips. Proof of life, trading breath. Quentin offers himself, greedy for Eliot’s touch. Even a shred of his desire is a feast and Quentin opens his mouth to the press of his tongue with a shudder of need. Their lips part with a smack and Eliot lets out a high, urgent noise. Like he’s shocked. Like he isn’t cradling Quentin’s neck in the palm of his hand. 

“It’s okay.” 

“I know.” Eliot’s brow pinches, like he’s in pain, but then smooths out again when Quentin sets his hand at the small of his back. “I missed you.” 

Quentin slips his hand under Eliot’s shirt, tracing the long line of his spine. 

“We’re both right here.” 

Eliot has one hand on Quentin’s hip now.

“Can I touch you?” 

Quentin’s been so good. It’s been so long and he’s been good and he’s waited to press into the shape of Eliot’s firm elegant hand and beg— “God, _please_.”

It’s not the perfect fuck of Before. It’s bumping noses a little and fumbling hands getting Quentin’s shirt over his head and their pants open because they just need to be touching. 

“Oh,” Quentin gasps when they’re pressed together, mouth to mouth and chest to chest. They’re both hard and—and rubbing together, oh _Christ—_

“Feels so good,” Eliot slurs against Quentin’s mouth. “You’re so good, Q.” 

“Need you.” Quentin bites at the sharp edge of Eliot’s jaw. He presses his face to the stubble rough line of Eliot’s throat and _breathes_. “Please, I need you to—“

Eliot gets one of his long lovely hands between their bodies. He takes them in hand—god, Quentin can feel the exact shape of him, the size of him against him—and starts stroking them together. 

“Perfect. Oh, fuck, _yes.”_ Quentin is just...head empty. There’s nothing but Eliot. Nothing but the two of them finding pleasure together and to be honest? They’ve fucking earned it. God knows Quentin has used sex as a distraction enough times in the past, but this doesn’t feel like distraction. It feels like a reunion. Like catharsis. It feels like another brick in a house they’re building together. 

Most of all it feels so fucking good. 

He _wants_. He wants Eliot in his mouth. He wants him between his legs, fucking him. He wants to put Eliot on his back and have his turn. But it’s okay. This is more than okay for now. 

They have time. 

“Are you close?” Quentin asks, when Eliot’s thrusts turn erratic, and his kisses turn to wet, open mouth panting. 

“So close.” Eliot looks drugged, pressing their brows together. He’s lost his suaveness, his perfect crisp veneer. His hair is wild and his hand is needy on Quentin’s thigh. “Q…” 

“It’s alright. I know.” 

He’s beautiful. He’s everything Quentin has ever wanted. He always has been. 

“I want you to come,” Quentin murmurs, just brushing their lips together. “Please. Let me have it.”

Eliot jerks them off and spills with a cracked groan, and his grip around their cocks goes wet and slick with it. Quentin strokes his back and kisses his face even as his belly clenches and he curls up into a half sit because he’s right there—right on the edge _Eliot please—_

Eliot clutches him to his chest and pulls until Quentin comes with a shuddering exhale. It’s over and gone in a moment, one moment of perfect bliss held in Eliot’s arms. 

They needed this. Eliot lays him back down and kisses him and kisses him and kisses him. The dam is broken and now they’re allowed. 

They’re going to be partners. They’re going to be _fathers._ They’re allowed. 

“This was good.” Eliot kisses Quentin’s brow. “Right?”

“Yeah,” Quentin agrees around a smile. “Really good. ...I think it’ll be good tomorrow, too.” 

“Me too.” Eliot's gaze is cautious, and hopeful. “And the day after.”

“Yeah.” 

Eliot pets his fingers through Quentin’s hair. Thumbs the line of his jaw and the dimple at the corner of his smile. 

“I want this. Us,” he says after a beat. “But—there’s probably still going to be some days, when I need—“ 

Space. Room to grieve. Time now and then to prod the bruise even as it finally starts to fade. 

He grimaces, like he’s about to apologize, but Quentin leans up to kiss him. “I know. Me too, probably. I think that’s just life, El. Just—talk to me, okay? You’re not alone.” 

Eliot nuzzles into Quentin’s collarbone. 

“Thank you.” 

There isn’t a drawer in the apartment that doesn’t contain baby wipes, so Quentin takes a couple from the packet in his bedside table and cleans the worst of the stickiness from between their bellies. 

Only now that he’s full of Eliot, sated with his touch, does Quentin realize he’s been starving. Eliot is the same, rubbing his face into the crook of Quentin’s neck like a cat. Skin hungry, even now. His hands are trembling a little, still on the edge of frantic, like it all might still get taken away.

“Shh,” he soothes him, easing his fingers through Eliot’s curls, careful not to tug. “I’ve got you. Rest.” 

Eliot, the whole lovely long weight of him draped over Quentin, his head tucked under his chin, does. Held safe and heavy and warm by the love of his life, Quentin follows.

* * *

After the best night’s sleep they’ve had in months, it’s a big day. Eliot is going back to work. He’s been back on the job behind the scenes for about a month now, but today there’s a bride and groom counting on his personal supervision to make sure everything at their fancy Long Island vineyard reception goes smoothly. 

Quentin is so proud. He’s proud of himself, too. He’s almost finished with the first draft of his next book, and the first one is selling well. His agent is lining up a Northeast signing tour in a few weeks. He feels good about that, and even better about the fact that he knows Eliot is in a good place even if Quentin has to travel for a long weekend. They’ll have to talk soon about how to balance both their jobs with taking care of Mimi, and he knows they’re ready for it. 

The weak morning sun lights up the kitchen while Quentin smiles absently over his coffee and a hot stove.

Eliot emerges from the bedroom, and he looks so handsome. He’s done his hair and his eyeliner and his suit is done up with little details to match the color scheme of the wedding. Lilac and sage. He’s lovely. Quentin hasn’t showered yet today and his hair is probably lank as hell. He’s got a ratty apron on to keep from getting splashed with hot grease while he cooks up what’s left of the bacon that’s about to go bad in the fridge.

“I thought we could have BLTs later.” Quentin gestures to the pan and wonders if he should have put more effort into his morning-after appearance. “Or whatever, it’s not like the bacon will go to waste–”

“I love you,” Eliot says, as if it’s something terrible. As if Quentin is going to pick up the words like a stick and hit him with them. He looks so handsome, and nervous enough to throw up. 

Quentin rests the spatula on a paper plate. Gives Eliot a minute. 

“I was in the shower and I realized,” Eliot continues. “That I might not have made that clear last night. I love you, and I only want to be with you. Long term. Forever, really.”

Quentin can’t believe how lucky he is. 

“Okay.” 

Eliot’s jaw twitches. He fidgets with the cuffs poking out of his sleeves, even though they’re already perfect. 

“Okay?” 

Quentin sighs, relieved, and he realizes, really stupidly happy. “Yeah. I love you, too.” 

“Oh.” Eliot says, voice only a little rough. “Okay. Great.” Disregarding any threat of bacon grease he pulls Quentin into a hug. He rests his chin on top of Quentin’s head, and they just stay in that moment for a few breaths. 

“Any other shower thoughts weighing on you?” Quentin asks after a minute. Eliot shakes his head. Presses his lips to Quentin’s hairline. 

“Just you wait. I’ll be home for dinner.” 

Quentin grins against Eliot’s collar. “I know you will. Now let me go before I burn the bacon.” 

Eliot laughs, and reaches past Quentin to get his travel mug out from the coffeemaker where Quentin set it for him earlier. Eliot’s still got circles under his eyes, a soft smudge of violet that might just be part of him now. Eliot might wear his loss for the rest of his life, but they’ll be alright. It’s not like Quentin’s depression is going away any time soon, and that hasn’t stopped him. They’ll do their best, and in the meantime Quentin can make Eliot coffee, and look after the baby for the day while he goes to work. Tonight they’ll cook dinner together and see if they can get Mimi to finally get over her deep hatred of mashed green beans, and if all goes well they’ll fall asleep together in the same bed, skin to skin.

It sounds perfect. In fact, it sounds like what Quentin wants to do for the rest of his life. 

“Hey, El?” 

Eliot’s already by the door, just waiting for Fen to text that she’s downstairs. He looks up from his leather document folder, eyebrows raised. 

Quentin fumbles a little under the full weight of Eliot’s earnest gaze.“I just thought—maybe it’s dumb. But, um, you probably know better than most how to get a hold of a marriage license, right?” 

Eliot closes his folder with a soft snap, setting it on the little table by the door. 

“You want to—“

“As long as you do.” 

Eliot’s smile is slow, and disbelieving, and thrilled. Quentin’s heart jumps, because, _oh there you are,_ but it’s different. Eliot’s smile is older and wiser, just a bit tragic, but that’s alright. As long as Quentin gets to have it. 

And what Eliot says after:

“I do.” 

Quentin wets his lips. “Good. Um, in that case—”

Eliot’s across the room and has Quentin back in his arms before he can even imagine the end of that sentence. 

They can’t even kiss for smiling. It’s been a long fucking nine months, but holding onto Eliot—his friend, his partner, his fiance?—with their daughter asleep in the next room, Quentin thinks they’re stumbling their way to a good life. 

Whatever they’re stumbling towards, they’ll do it together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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> “This is life, he kept saying to himself. That was being dead, and this is being alive. That was death, this is life. I will never confuse them again.” Lev Grossman, The Magician King


End file.
